Man with 5 guns, body armor arrested inside Publix supermarket in Atlanta

It just boggles my mind as to what this guy was doing. He could have just walked in and started firing. Instead he goes to the bathroom??

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ATLANTA — A man was arrested on Wednesday after walking into an Atlanta supermarket carrying five guns and wearing body armor, authorities said.

The incident occurred slightly more than a week after a gunman killed eight people at three Atlanta-area spas.

Rico Marley, 22, was charged with reckless conduct, the Atlanta Police Department said on Wednesday in a news release.

According to the release, a man, later identified as Marley, walked into the supermarket, located in the Atlantic Station neighborhood of Atlanta, at about 1:34 p.m. EDT. Investigators said the man was holding a rifle and wearing body armor. According to the release, Marley was observed walking into a store bathroom. He was carrying two long rifles and three pistols, and a witness alerted police.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fo...ta/4PO5Q32MYVCJVCNOO3JBLMWFSU/?outputType=amp

 

It is tough to carry out a mass shooting on a full bladder.

But it looks like yet another mentally ill person getting access to guns. We may be fortunate that he didn't want to kill anyone and was simply walking around with his arsenal.

 

He got lost on the way to the BLM rally?

Hard to know. Is it illegal in Atlanta to walk around carrying weapons with body armor on?

 

Oh I get it. You made the BLM joke because he is a black guy. Hur hur. You are so clever.

 

Is there any indication that rico was there to shoot up the place? And why ignore the question about open carry. If a witness could tell you he had two rifles and three hand guns, they likely were not concealed were they? Remember this is around atlanta where a number of incidents have happened where groups of black folks rallied while armed. They weren't arrested because, open carry isn't a crime.

So what is the actual crime here?

 

I didn't see an apology or retraction for your little race joke.

 

His charges have been upgraded from "reckless conduct":

Police identified the man as Rico Marley. He was booked into the Fulton County Jail on multiple charges of criminal attempt to commit a felony and weapons possession.

https://www.ajc.com/news/man-took-6...-station-cops-say/44Y6FBBM4FDVDJQABYQTBOADBU/

 

LMAO on your 1st sentence. Agree 100%

 

The scene in the picture in no way resembles a super market, it appears to be a residential neighbor hood, and the black man in handcuffs in the picture does not appear to be wearing body armor, is this really the suspect???

 

It looks like GA allows for open and concealed carry with the right documentation.

https://www.usconcealedcarry.com/resources/ccw_reciprocity_map/ga-gun-laws/

I don't understand the "criminal attempt to commit a felony" because the article states nothing about him doing anything other than going to the restroom. Doesn't "attempt" mean that something was tried and failed? What felony did he attempt?

The article states the witness said he had on body armor. However, he didn't have it on when the police arrived.

It also doesn't make sense that all the weapons were allegedly concealed but the witness knew how many were on the person. The whole story sounds disjointed.

 

Yeah, it's kind of hard to conceal two rifles. Also . . . if it was his intent to kill people, why bring two rifles? Occasionally you have 2nd Amendment activists walk around open carrying in all sorts of overly dramatic ways just to make a statement that it is their right to do so, so maybe that's the case here? But you'd think he would have been vocal about it if that were the case. None of this really makes sense.

 

Yes.

"disjointed" sounds about right.

Obviously, if there is no legal basis for the charges, a lawyer (or public defender) assigned to the case can just have them thrown out.

 

Sounds like he just wanted to be arrested for some reason....too bad this will disappear like the morning mist and only locals will know the real reason when it goes to trial a year or so from now.

 

APD can confirm that the photo below is of the weapons the suspect was armed with at the time of his arrest.



What's really weird is how long he was in the bathroom. Someone saw him in the bathroom, went to the service desk and reported it and he was just coming out as the cops got there. Nervous colon??

 

Okay, so not two rifles, but a shotgun and rifle, which makes a little more sense. Four handguns? Really?

Maybe he actually was planning something, but couldn't go through with it once he got there? Or, yeah, could just be that he wanted to get arrested for whatever reason.

 

Like I said before, the media and the President sensationalize this bullshit and the copy cat crazies all want a piece of the fame..

 

I'd be willing to bet he wasn't there for groceries Most likely chickened out or came to his senses.. BUT better to have been caught this way, and with all those firearms and ammo, WELL COME ON, he seriously needs Eval'd

 

You funny

 

Did he confess he was going to commit a crime or something? We'll have to wait and see I guess.

 

Why was he arrested? Is is a crime to use the bathroom? Was the store posted for no firearms? I’m not familiar with the local laws. I know here in Maine it is legal to own and wear body armor as well.

5 guns is silly though. I don’t see the point beyond either a rifle or a shotgun and then a sidearm. But silly doesn’t mean illegal. Maybe he was a felon?

 

True.

If there is nothing to the charges, then I am sure the charges will be dropped.

 

I'm perplexed. The balls on this guy to show up with all that weaponry and then go to the restroom... My best guess is that he wanted to use it as a ready-room to check his load one last time or whatever, then come out shooting.

@Josh77 One cannot even smartly carry all those weapons so I'd say that is well beyond lawful behavior. In a supermarket no less. It's not like he showed up to a range (plus I'm assuming his weapons were already loaded, which you shouldn't do even when arriving to a shooting range).

 

Like I said, there is no law against being impractical that I know of. Did he point them at anybody? Did he make any threats? I don’t know, but I don’t see any laws being broken from the information we have so far. Maybe we will find laws were broken when we find out more, but until then, I don’t see that he did anything wrong.

 

Maybe, but he presumably showed up in a vehicle, otherwise he would have been spotted and reported well before this, and he could have just readied himself there. And if he had used the restroom as a ready-room, he probably could have readied himself and started shooting well before the cops showed up, since they were called while he was on the way to the restroom or while he was in there.

Not saying this makes any less sense than any other explanation, however. He may have realized he was spotted and then panicked and froze inside the restroom afterward, or otherwise got cold feet while he was in there.

 

All I can think about now are the stories my wife and her fellow runners have told about peeing themselves in the middle of a marathon just to avoid stopping and cutting into their time by stopping. I would think that a mass-murdering shooter would have been even more motivated than that.