Busted at Church with Flamethrowers and Crossbows

A crazy man was arrested for showing up to church with flamethrowers, crossbows, 500 rounds of ammo and more. We're talking all about it on this week's Hunting Roots Podcast. Don't miss it! 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Welcome back to the Hunting Roots Podcast. I'm Brody Swisher. This is episode 250. Rimbo, can you believe this is 250, 250 episodes of the Hunting Roots Podcast? Pretty big deal, huh?

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Pretty big deal, and it just falls right on time for the 4th of July, which is 250 Years of America.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Celebrating 250 years of America. And uh, yes, so very fitting this week that we uh are landing on the 250th uh episode of the podcast and 250 years of of freedom. And uh freedom in a big way. We thank God for that. God bless the USA, all kind of all kind of songs um that that come to mind when you think of patriotism, you think of um you know this country and the freedom we have, think of a lot of uh Toby Keith songs, we think of Lee Greenwood. Um anyway, good stuff. We'll talk a few moments about that. But again, welcome back to the podcast. This podcast is brought to you by our good friends at OnyxHunt. Onexmaps.com is the website. You can go check it out there, check it out on the app store and your smartphone, get the app loaded, uh whether you're getting ready for hunting season coming up, um out fishing, boating, knowing where you stand. Know where you stand. That's the motto, that's the slogan, and uh man, that's that's good stuff for the hunting and fishing world, the outdoor world, but also the good stuff for life. So know where you stand, check it out on xmaps.com. Also, big thanks to the crew at Mossy Oak. Mossyoke.com, go check out the website, buy the camo, check out the articles and content there. Lots of good stuff at mossyoak.com. 250 years of freedom, Rimbo, and um I I love it. We've we've been able to celebrate that. We're on the backside now of uh the July 4th weekend, and uh it's been a good time, great, uh just several days. And uh sitting here in the office and you still hear booming, people still blowing up stuff outside. I can hear it in the distance uh from our property and people still letting the mortars ring out. And I mean, and man, it's just a it's been a fun few days, fun week really, of celebrating uh the freedom that uh our forefathers um had the guts and the testicular fortitude to go after and say, you know what, there is a better way. We're not gonna do this, we're gonna go and uh do what God's called us to do and and pursue freedom, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And uh man, what a declaration. And uh can't thank those guys enough for what they stood for. I mean, we talked about it. It could have gone either way. Um we were at an event the other day, and Andy Holt said it. Um he he said that. He said those guys laid it out there. And if things would have gone a little bit south, uh, those guys would, you know, been wiped off the map. History would have been just completely different, but they had the mojo to go after it and say, hey, here's here's what we're gonna do. We're not gonna continue in this same deal. We're doing our own thing, and we're gonna pursue uh goodness, godliness, and uh, so I love it. Great time to be celebrating 250 years, and again, 250 podcast episodes. We appreciate you guys sticking with us in uh the highs, the lows, all the ups and downs, good stuff, sticking with us on this podcast each week. We greatly, greatly appreciate that. And so big thanks to you guys. And uh so it's been a good, a good week, Rimbo, but it's also been kind of a tough week. You know, you think about the stuff. We live here in the lake community, uh the Kentucky Lake area, northwest Tennessee. Um, and did you hear what happened last night about the dude out there at uh I heard I feel like I heard somebody drowned. Yeah, there's a drowning just out there towards Paris Landing, Grays Landing area. Um I'd heard yesterday it was a 35-year-old guy. I've seen since then uh came out that it was a 40-year-old dude. And uh I guess uh folks at church were talking about the fact that he went missing earlier in the day, because we thought maybe it was last night out on the boat. You know, they do fireworks out there on the lake, and you know, big fireworks show dark, and I just, you know, it's always one of those things you look and you see all the boats and people everywhere, party barges all over the place, and you just gotta know sooner or later this kind of stuff happens, right? You're gonna have that many boats in the dark, people drinking, partying, you know, it's just a dangerous deal. And so I think a lot of folks just naturally assumed that that was a deal, you know, boat wreck, falls out of his boat, whatever, but come to find out it wasn't a boat situation, and it wasn't even a nighttime deal. They said, from what I understand, somebody said that earlier in the day, like right after lunch, uh, dude was swimming. And I don't know if he got out too far, if he was drinking, if I don't know what the deal was, but uh evidently didn't make it. His friends reported him as drowned, and they searched and searched, and then the storm came through. We've had daily afternoon storms here for about a week now. Nasty storm blew up, and they had to call off the search yesterday, but I guess they recovered him today. And uh sad deal, 40-year-old dude, again, I don't know the details, don't know the stuff, but uh they finally re recovered his body. And uh just uh, like I said, man, kind of a sad thing. I mean, very sad thing, but um you go from partying, having a good time, living it up, celebrate America, 250 years, everybody just having a big time to devastation, you know, and I I hate that for them, the friends, family, you know, things can happen quick, change fast, and uh so tough stuff there, but a lot of good things, a lot of good stuff. People I think this year, because it is two hundred and fifty, you know, people are once again just big time this year celebrating freedom. And uh and I love it. I love the freedom we have to uh as we talked about earlier today, the freedom we have to come together and hang out and worship at church and uh freedom we have to talk about um whatever it is we want to talk about, do whatever we want to do. And um there's a lot of countries that that would be going to jail, right? If you you went to church, you tried to meet together and pray or whatever, and uh just the freedom to do that, the freedom we have to uh tote guns around. You know what I'm saying? I I toked my gun today. I was in Walmart, see another dude, you know, he's got on his hip, he's got a gun right there, man. Just the freedom to have uh guns, own guns, shoot our guns. I killed some critters the other day, we'll talk about that on another podcast, but I mean just the freedom to have that, man. We're sitting here in the office and studio, man. It's we got guns. You got guns. I mean, you're a thirteen-year-old boy. You got several guns, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:59

I got like one. Well you get one real gun, like one actual It's yours.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Well, I guess so. I got a lot of them that I consider yours, but they're just all of ours, I guess. It's in your name. Yeah, they're all in my name, right. You can't have one to your name till you're what, eighteen? Something like that, probably. Eighteen or yeah, I guess it's eighteen, but a lot of freedoms. What do you what are you excuse me, most um thankful for when you think about freedom, like the freedom of the America. What do you what are you so thankful about when it comes to freedom that we have living in this great country? Anything pop to mind?

SPEAKER_00 7:37

I'm just grateful for that. We don't have to follow the commands of some terrible country that just ha we have to listen to what they tell us to do.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Yeah, some crazy lunatic guy. Now some people would say some of the presidents we've had are crazy and we have to follow their crazy commands and different stuff, but it's a different deal. You know, it's a different deal. We don't have some tyrant, you know, we got a president that we elect, and uh and so it is cool. It is cool. Um and I do thank God for that. And I pr I hope you guys do listening that you you thank God every day for what we have, the freedoms that we have in this country, and uh just to celebrate, to live the way we live. And you know, whether you've got b bunches of money in the bank or you're struggling from month to month, you are a rich man or woman, and we are. We're rich people. Even the the poorest of us are rich when compared to the rest of the world and other countries across the world. We're a very rich people, and so we need to thank God every day for that freedom, and um, it's good stuff. And um anyway, I do uh thank God for that. Rimbo, we got a crazy story we'll talk about real quick. We'll keep it short and sweet this week because we've got a roll getting ready to boogie on down to some student camp stuff this next week, but we've got a story that we're gonna throw, and uh it's a pretty wild one when we talk about church, we talk about freedom, uh the folks that show up at church, good, bad, ugly, we've got a story here for you. This is your posted segment of the week. All right. Hey, um here's a hot one. I got a hot one for you, Rimbo. And I I don't I don't think we uh uh on purpose didn't mention much of this to you because I thought this is a good one. Screenshot this the other day. Uh I say it's a good one. It's a bad one. It's I mean it's uh a good, buzzworthy story, uh, but something that could have been pretty nasty. Listen to it. Here it just happened last couple days. Man accused of bringing flamethrower and crossbow to High Point Church. Uh says he had a notebook with addresses of church according to the mayor. Okay. Man accused of bringing flamethrower and crossbow to church. Rimbo, I'm gonna be honest with you. That sounds something like what you might do.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

I mean, I don't think I would do any of those really.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Crossbow.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

I might bring my real bow first. I'm not gonna bring no crossbow. I'm gonna bring me a compound bow.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Not a crossbow, just because you don't shoot a crossbow. What about flamethrowers? You ever showed up to church with flamethrowers?

SPEAKER_00 10:22

I don't even think I've held a flamethrower.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Yeah. Well, here's the deal. High Point Church. I think this is out of North Carolina. High Point Mayor Cyril Cyril Jefferson is speaking out after a man allegedly brought a flamethrower and other weapons to a church parking lot on Sunday. Jefferson thanked High Point police officers for their quick response to the scene, including the off-duty officers who was who was working at Wesley Memorial Church that day. The incident, I guess, happened at Wesley Memorial Methodist Church. The mayor also stated that the suspect, William S. Milliken III, he's 44, of Thomasville, appears to have mental health issues, and that he had a notebook with the addresses for churches and the schools in his truck. Oh my word. So dude's got a hit list. He's got a list of addresses for churches and schools, and he's on a rampage. And uh they said he's got uh appears to have mental health issues, I would say. So uh Jefferson expressed his gratitude that no one was hurt as a result of Sunday's events. Uh full statement uh from the mayor. It sounds like as a mayor of High Point, I want every resident to know what happened yesterday and why we all owe our police officers our thanks. Yesterday morning, during Sunday services at Westley Memorial Church, High Point 911 received a call reporting an armed individual sitting in a truck in a church parking lot. The caller reported that the individual is wearing camouflage. Oh my goodness, man. Dude cameled up. He's one of us. He's wearing bottom lens. He's wearing bottom lens. No, okay. We're not we're that's just speculation. We don't know that. The caller reported the man was wearing uh camouflage clothing and appeared to have a firearm. An off-duty high point police officer who was working at the church immediately responded, and additional officers arrived within minutes. They safely disarmed the individual and took him into custody without incident. After searching the vehicles, officers recovered a CO2 powered launcher designed to resemble a handgun, two flamethrowers, two crossbows, more than 500 rounds of ammunition, multiple knives, black duct tape, there you go, uh, and oxycodon uh pills. The suspect now faces multiple criminal charges, including possession of a weapon of mass destruction. Court documents also show he had a notebook with addresses of churches and schools, police scanners, body armor, and more in the truck. The docs also states he believed to have have uh had mental health issues. Most importantly, no one was hurt. Hundreds of people who had gathered to worship were able to return home safely to their families. I'm grateful to the community members who recognized that something wasn't right and made the call to 911. Their willingness to act reminds us that public safety is a shared responsibility. I'm equally grateful for the professionalism and decisive response of the High Point Police Department. They resolved a highly uncertain situation quickly, calmly, and without injury to anyone involved. Moments like this remind us that many of the most important acts of public safety are the ones most people never have to think about, because they end before tragedy has a chance to unfold. Thank you to everyone of the High Point Police Department for your service to our city. That's all from the mayor uh of the town there. Um pretty crazy stuff. Pretty crazy stuff, man. I mean that that stuff happens, and you hear about the bad ones. Um, but I thank God for these ones like this, where the dude was there, he had the stuff five hundred rounds of ammo. That's a lot. That's a lot of ammo. I don't know what all kind of guns he had in there, but trips me out that he had a cross, he went in there with two crossbows. And two flamethrowers. Flamethrowers, man. The flamethrowers would get made like it's burn the church, I guess. Yeah, he's just gonna go in there, whoo, you know, you think hell is hot, you know, whatever. I mean, he's like I got flamethrowers. I'll give you a little taste of hell right here. I don't know, man. Um I don't know, it's crazy, dude. Yeah, you gotta be a little bit crazy if you're gonna go do uh uh an attack like that.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

You gotta be really crazy to do that.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Well, you've got to be really crazy to do it in general, but to the fact you show up with two crossbows kind of shows you're not thinking real good because you know what I'm saying, you're not gonna the weapon choices though. That's what I'm saying. You're not gonna crossbows right. He had 500 rounds of ammo, but didn't really talk about the guns, but he had uh two crossbows, like you're gonna go in there and foom, foom, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

It takes a while to like reload and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Yeah, like I'm slinging arrows into the crowd and all of a sudden I gotta, you know, recock the thing or reload while these people are running. Yeah, running at you and jump on you. So yeah, obviously the guy wasn't all there. Um and it's just evil, man. It's just evil. Satan loves those kind of things, and you know, I think we're quick to label it mental health. Like obviously the dude wasn't thinking right and he was crazy and and whatever, but um and Satan just gets in the minds of these people and we let we let some of this crazy stuff happen. And um anyway. Nice try for that old boy. Um thought he was gonna be pretty slick going there and march into church with crossbow in each hand, flamethrowers around his back, and and just do some damage, but sound like some kind of Rambo crap. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I feel like Rambo crap.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Like a m they said something about a weapon of mass destruction.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

I think that was his other thing. Sound like he was like some kind of homemade rig that he was gonna go in there and do it up. Um blow up the church or something. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty wild stuff, man. I'm I'm just glad they caught the guy ahead of time. I mean, I've there's been more of that kind of stuff. We don't realize all the ones. You know, you hear about the ones that that they don't get they catch the guy, you know what I'm saying? Like you hear the ones on the news are the ones where, you know, the big shooting happened and people d got killed, and that obviously hits the news and hits it big. Man, for every one of those, there's tons of situations like this that you don't really hear much about. Uh I know one happened down at Bellevue, you know, our old home church where I grew up. Uh a dude walked into church and the security team saw him. He came in with like a backpack. Just a big backpack. And a security c team kinda jumped on it. He was headed up to the balcony and um he had a backpack loaded with ammo and like a gun broken down and I mean it was fixing to be a mess. And they caught him. And security you know what I'm saying? You don't hear about that. I mean, that doesn't make the news, but I mean that was just that close to being a major, major mess. And um fortunately the security teams had 'em. So I mean again goes back to just the importance of that security team. You think about that. These guys caught 'em. Security uh Bellevue guys caught 'em. I mean, man, churches just knee. I don't care how big or small. You know, our church at Maplewood's a pretty small church, you know, two or three hundred people, but about two or three people on security. But yeah, we got security at the doors, man. You you know, people watching for crap to happen like that, and just we got a bunch of guys that are always looking. I'm always looking, you know, I'm always looking for that sketchy person. If I see somebody walking there and you can call it stereotyping, whatever you want to, but if he walk in there looking a little sketchy, I'm gonna follow you around, you know, until you until I figure out, oh, he's just he's just a little bit you know, sketchy looking, but he's not he's no harm, you know what I'm saying? I mean, hey.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

I mean, yeah I'm on the wrong on the wrong day. I might look sketchy to people, you know, whatever, but um you just can't be too careful when it comes to that stuff, man. People are crazy these days and doing stupid stuff, and so it's uh ever around us, always something happening, and um anyway, it's gonna be something. Rimbo, what are you looking forward to this week? Camp coming up, student camp. I guess this is probably your first church camp, student camp to go to, and uh we're headed over east to the mountains a little bit, and uh gonna hit Manderley Camp. What are you looking forward to the most?

SPEAKER_00 18:31

I think I'm really just looking forward to the part of just like going to a new camp I've never been to, and like you said, I've not really ever been to an actual church camp. Like I've been to outdoor camps and stuff like that. Yeah. But I've never really been to a church camp, so this is gonna be really fun, I think. But that's what I'm most looking forward to.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Yeah. It's uh gonna be exciting time just to get away, do some hiking, hanging out, get up on the hills, up in the mountain there, and just uh yeah, I think just time away. We need that. Everybody needs that time, needs a break. And um that's what the Sabbath, you know, we talk about the Sabbath, and that was one of the commands. Hey, keep the Sabbath holy. That means keep it, honor it. And the Sabbath is just at a break. Stop. I think that's what they say it means, stop, and just to you know, take a break. You've been working hard all week, you've been working hard all summer, take a break. Stop, rest, and and that's what's beautiful about Sundays, and a lot of people work too hard on Sundays. I try to take a nap every Sunday, man. And uh I I like to rest and just to break from the world, break from that. And that's kind of what this camp for me, you know, it's gonna be busy, but uh I am looking forward to just taking a week and just chilling. See what God's up to, taking a break, stopping, resting, resting in him and just hanging out. And your mama's gonna be there on this one, so that'll be fun.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

Don't be yawning, laughing about that. Shoot, no, it's gonna be good. Uh and even better, just across the mountain from where your mama and I met. So it's actually special. We're gonna be up there returning from camp on the day of our anniversary. And uh, so that's pretty special stuff. That's pretty special stuff. I think it's all like the day we met, um, day we got engaged, um, you know, those all kind of fell uh right there around camp up in the same little neighborhood. So it's gonna be an awesome time. Looking forward to that. And um be a good week. We're excited to see what happens, what all goes down. You hear the fireworks booming. Is that fireworks still? No?

SPEAKER_00 20:33

No.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

That's it, old motorcycle going down the road. It's been good. Hey, we shot a lot of fireworks, we saw a lot of fireworks. Hats off to Joey Boyd. Joey Boyd, I think we talked about him uh time and time again, but he put on a great fireworks show for Maplewood. Nobody got hurt, everybody still got their fingers. That's what's good about it. Nobody ever tell you about Paw Paw Lumpkin.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

No.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Paw Paw Lumpkin was like my dad's like my dad's adopted dad, you know, um, somebody kind of took him in for a while. And um Pawpaw Lumpkin, I think he had on one hand he had a thumb and a pinky. Everything else was gone. He had a pinky, so he could kind of do the hang loose thing, you know, real good. Uh but I think it's what he had. He had a thumb. Maybe it's just a maybe just a thumb. I but I think it was a thumb and a pinky.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

And maybe a bit of pinky.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Because I yeah, just a bit of pinky. Because I always remember he'd try to shake your hand, you know, you'd be like, oh, and you'd go to shake his hand and no, or left hand. Yeah, well, I mean, he but he was always doing it. Now he was like, oh, I can still shake, you know. And he grabbed you by the thumb. That's a powerful little thumb, but he blew his fingers off with fireworks at f at Fourth July. And that was back in the day. I mean, that dude was old. He was old when I was your age. I mean, he was, you know, dying. He was 70, 80, probably 80 then. And uh, you know, that's been 40 years ago. So I mean, dude was way back in the day, but they had like real fireworks that were like more like explosives instead of just little pop little pop fireworks. I mean, they were this kind of stuff that, you know, that would hurt you. And sure enough, blew his fingers off when he was a kid or whatever. And so yeah, always always freaked me out. You're always like, don't hold those too long. Well, we yeah, we would do the same thing, and I remember my dad was like, hey, don't you be bite like Paw Paw Lumpkin and lose your fingers. And I remember one day throwing some little M, what do they call them, M60s, M90s, whatever, the big old fat firecracker. They weren't just a little black cats, they were a big fat one. And I remember one day I found one and the fuse had been lit and it went out, but there was a little bit of fuse left. I thought, oh, there's one that's still good. And I tried to light it and throw it real fast, but I lit it and it went, and before I could get it out of my hand, it's like a bow. And I just remember my whole hand going numb and I couldn't feel anything, and I was scared to look, and it just of course my ear, my ears were ringing. I didn't mean it. I did. I just I was so scared to look down. I was like, oh my gosh, they're gone because my ears were ringing and couldn't hear anything, couldn't feel my hand, and I just knew they were gone. And I just sat there, don't look at them, don't look at them, they're gone, they're gone. Paw Paw Lumpkin, and I finally looked down, and there they were, and I mean I was I couldn't move my fingers, you know. I was like, my hand's numb. I couldn't move anything, but finally, like I got my feeling back, and it was close. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Like those big little firecracker, the big ones, though, like Aiden throws them at us, which is a bad idea.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Yeah. We still need to have our bottle rocket war. We need to go buy some more uh before they all get gone. We'll see. But uh awesome, awesome week celebrating freedom. When I think about freedom, again, think about what we've seen here in America. But even that pales in comparison with what God's done, the freedom he's given us through Jesus Christ. What he did on the cross, man. You talk about freedom. That's what happened when Jesus died on the cross. For those that have given their life to him and and received that and made him the Lord of their life, man, that's that's freedom. And uh this verse here says it all Galatians 5.13, for you were called to freedom, brethren. Only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another. You are called to freedom. That's us. We've been called to freedom. And um, and again, it says don't take that freedom uh as an opportunity. Don't overdo it, don't blow it. Don't take it as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love, serve one another, man. We are free people. God's called us to freedom, and we ought to serve others along the way. And uh so good stuff, man. Rimbo, appreciate you hanging out with us. And as always, uh, we appreciate everybody listening, like we said before, 250 episodes this thing. And uh just again, appreciate you hanging out with us each week, listening uh as we share our story and just kind of take you along on our journey. Hope it encourages you on yours. As always, guys, I encourage you to chase him with all your heart, soul, and strength. And we'll see you right back here on the next one. Shoot straight. God bless you.