(CNN) — A 20-year-old man from upstate New York was charged with making a terroristic threat after threatening to carry out a shooting at Tops Friendly Markets supermarket in Manlius, New York, in a Discord post, according to court documents and the local police.
Police responded Saturday to a call from the manager of Tops in Manlius, a town in Onondaga County, who said the store received phone calls from two different people expressing concern over statements made by a Discord user saying that was going to hurt shoppers at his supermarket, according to court documents obtained by WSTM, a CNN affiliate.
The two witnesses who called the supermarket reported that the threatening comments on Discord, which included a racist reference, came from a 20-year-old man named Zachary who lives in the Manlius area and whose father recently died, according to court documents.
Police investigated the posts and identified the user as Zachary Mullen of Jamesville, according to a statement from the Town of Manlius Police Department.
Police arrested Mullen on Saturday for making a terrorist threat, and a search of his home later found weapons and ammunition, according to the police statement.
A judge also issued an Extreme Risk Protection Order against Mullen on Sunday, allowing authorities to seize at least two firearms from his home.
CNN was unable to identify an attorney for Mullen.
“There were some racist undertones to the posts made by Mr Mullen and at this point we are still trying to connect the dots as to why he chose the Tops in Manlius, but certainly the location above the store, the name of the store, the racist nature of the post would give anyone pause, that this may have been a lot more cowardly than it appears on the surface,” Onondaga County District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick told WSTM.
Discord is the same social media site that a convicted gunman posted to before killing 10 people at Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, New York.
Law enforcement officials verified that Mullen’s father, who they say was an avid hunter, had died a few days before Mullen’s Discord posts and was grieving, according to the affidavit.
Mullen, who lives with his mother, is not currently in jail, according to the county district attorney.
“Unfortunately, he is in what is known as a pretrial release because we live in New York and that is the nature of bail reform in New York. Unbelievably, he’s out there, so if he has secret access to a weapon, God forbid, that’s something we just don’t know, but we’ll certainly be monitoring him as much as we can,” Fitzpatrick said in a statement to WSTM.
