The heavily-armed Indiana man arrested on his way to a Los Angeles-area gay pride parade will appear in a Los Angeles court Tuesday.
Police say 20-year-old James Wesley Howell was arrested with three assault rifles and chemicals for making explosives in Santa Monica, California, early Sunday. He was in a vehicle registered to Indiana.
Prior Record & Probation
The chief probation officer in Clark County, Indiana, says 20-year-old James Wesley Howell didn't have permission to leave the state following his guilty plea in April to a misdemeanor intimidation charge.
Court records show Howell was twice accused of threatening people with a gun last year.
Police in Charlestown say the first incident involved James Wesley Howell's boyfriend last October and the second involved a neighbor four days later.
Howell was charged with intimidation in the second case and reached a plea deal that placed him on probation and prohibited him from having weapons.
Santa Monica police said Howell told them he was in town for the annual gay pride parade in West Hollywood. Police haven't said whether Howell had any plans to use the weapons.
James Hayden says Howell met on May 22 with a probation officer, who rated him a low-level offender. Hayden says officers hadn't yet conducted a surprise home visit to check that Howell was following a judge's order not to have weapons during his one-year probation.
Political Beliefs
The apparent Facebook page of the man is full of pictures of himself with his car and includes a number of political posts. But it shows no enmity for gays or membership in any movement.
The man in the Facebook page appears to be the same James Wesley Howell in a picture released by police, and the page includes several pictures of a white Acura sedan like the one Howell was arrested in on Sunday.
The page's most recent public post, from June 3, shows a photo comparing Adolf Hitler to Hillary Clinton. An anti-Clinton, pro-Bernie Sanders photo was posted in February.
The page says he lives in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and he went to high school in nearby Louisville, Kentucky. He works as an auditor at a company that makes air filtration products.
A lawyer for the man says the suspect's father is cooperating with the FBI. Louisville, Kentucky, attorney Bobby Boyd tells station WDRB-TV that the father of James Wesley Howell is shocked by his 20-year-old son's arrest and is talking to investigators. Boyd asked that the father not be identified.
Boyd, who represented Howell in a Kentucky case, says Howell is trying to find an attorney in California.
Orlando Mass Shooting
Meanwhile, gay rights activists in Indiana are planning evening vigils following a shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida that left 49 victims and the shooter dead.
Gov. Mike Pence has directed flags be flown at half-staff at state facilities to honor victims. He calls the killings a "senseless act of terror."
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett has also called for flags in Marion County be flown at half-staff.
An armed gunman opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando early Sunday before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers.
The attack left 49 victims dead, as well as the shooter, making it the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Authorities are investigating it as an act of terrorism.
