TEMPE, AZ (AZFamily) — An Arizona man is now behind bars after threatening to shoot up a red carpet event in Tempe on Sunday night.
The suspect, Trevor O’Dowd, went by “Orange TSauce” online. The FBI was sent the evidence from Facebook, where these threats were being made, and quickly acted to intercept the man before he could carry out any plans.
The apparent motive? Not getting an invite to the event.
“Anyone got an AK I can borrow? Bout to go end some lives since you think I’m never gonna make it.”
That was just one of many disturbing Facebook statuses and messages the FBI said O’Dowd posted in mid-March, threatening to kill people at a red-carpet fashion show and hip-hop music event in Tempe on April 7.
“In this business you can’t be wrong any of the time, so you take all of these extremely seriously,” said former FBI supervisory special agent Lance Leising.
Leising looked over the federal criminal complaint.
According to newly released court docs, O’Dowd was upset he wasn’t invited to this event. He was a self-proclaimed emerging dancer, producer, and artist.
At one point, he tells the event organizer online it will be a “wild west shootout on Mill Avenue” and goes on to have this Facebook messenger conversation with an unknown user who’s trying to calm him down:
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, was monitoring the messages and let the FBI know, with time ticking to build a case.
“You’re worried about a mass shooting event happening in two weeks. You don’t have time for any of that, so you fall back on the statute you can make. You have evidence that this statute has been violated, that’s a way to get this person of the streets and make sure this doesn’t happen so that’s what you use,” said Leising.
Leising is talking about a part of the United States Code that deals with making threats to hurt others.
He said with people angry on social media and often bold enough to post about it, this is happening more and more.
“There were about 80 successful uses of it last year. If you go about 10 years before it, it was only used about 15 times,” said Leising. “These aren’t cases the federal government loses very often because the elements are pretty simple to prove.”
The event coordinator told Arizona’s Family the fashion and music event went on as planned but with added security.
The FBI matched multiple social media profiles with the moniker “Orange Sauce” to identify O’Dowd and matched his birthday from the Arizona Motor Vehicle Division with the date of birth on the Facebook accounts. They started surveilling his license plate, which showed Dowd uses addresses in Phoenix and Prescott.
Authorities also tracked O’Dowd’s car and phone which showed he was in Phoenix, Prescott Valley, and Tempe, just a mile from the event.
If convicted of violating that statute, O’Dowd could face fines and up to five years in prison.
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