Ex-NC Cop Arrested in Destin with 200 Rounds, Accused of Plotting Jazz Fest Massacre

A former North Carolina law enforcement officer was arrested Wednesday night at a Destin hotel carrying a handgun and approximately 200 rounds of ammunition. He is accused of planning a racially motivated mass shooting at a major New Orleans festival, the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office announced Thursday.

Christopher Gillum, 41, of Chapel Hill, N.C., was taken into custody without incident. Authorities in multiple states believe he was heading to New Orleans to "do a mass shooting at a large festival in Louisiana," the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office said. Gillum, who is white, had told family members he intended to harm Black people, according to a bulletin from the Burlington, N.C., Police Department. Though authorities across several states declined to name the target event, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival — Jazz Fest — runs Thursday through May 3 and drew approximately 460,000 attendees last year, according to festival organizers.

For Treasure Coast residents, the arrest is a sharp reminder that Florida's role as a transit corridor carries its own public-safety weight. Destin sits roughly 500 miles northwest of Martin County, but the same I-10 corridor that funnels Treasure Coast families toward New Orleans for festivals and vacations also served as the route for an alleged would-be mass shooter. Florida's large-scale outdoor events — from Stuart's Sailfish Regatta to Fort Pierce's Mango RipFest — draw crowds in the tens of thousands. Local law enforcement agencies have increasingly coordinated with federal partners on pre-event threat screening.

The breakdown in interdiction is already drawing scrutiny. Gillum's family reported him missing Tuesday and alerted law enforcement that he had a firearm and had made violent threats, according to Lt. Clint Lyons of the Alamance County Sheriff's Office in North Carolina. Lyons said his agency could not involuntarily commit Gillum or charge him criminally "because there was no victim." Okaloosa deputies initially contacted Gillum on Wednesday morning for a welfare check but did not yet know he had been making violent threats, sheriff spokesperson Michele Nicholson said. After the sheriff's office was briefed on the full investigation, deputies surveilled Gillum until an arrest warrant arrived from Louisiana. He was arrested and will be extradited to face charges there, the Okaloosa Sheriff's Office said.

Gillum spent much of his career in North Carolina law enforcement. He served as a sworn Chapel Hill police officer from 2004 until his resignation in 2019, according to town spokesperson Alex Carrasquillo. He then worked as an officer in Carolina Beach before cycling through multiple law enforcement positions, most recently resigning as an Orange County, N.C., sheriff's deputy in September 2025, spokesperson Alicia L. Stemper said. The FBI's New Orleans field office is coordinating the investigation across North Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. "At this time, there are no known direct threats to any festivals in Louisiana," Louisiana State Police spokesperson Trooper Danny Berrincha said Thursday. It was not immediately known whether Gillum has retained legal representation. Extradition proceedings are expected to begin in the coming days.

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