Burlington police help track missing Alamance County man accused of mass shooting plot

Burlington police helped stop a case that stretched from Alamance County to Louisiana and Florida, using their Aerial Reconnaissance Tactical Intelligence Center to track a missing man authorities say was headed toward a mass shooting in New Orleans. Deputies in Destin, Florida, arrested Christopher Gillum at about 6:40 p.m. Wednesday, April 22, and recovered a handgun and roughly 200 rounds of ammunition from his hotel room.

The case started as a missing-person report in Alamance County on Tuesday, April 22, when family members told investigators they were worried about Gillum’s behavior and safety. The Alamance County Sheriff’s Office said Gillum had been speaking out of character, had recently expressed threats to harm Black people and had a history of self-harm, prompting deputies to treat him as a danger to himself and others.

The sheriff’s office contacted Burlington’s ARTIC, and investigators used FLOCK license plate readers to determine Gillum was traveling south toward Florida. From there, Burlington police alerted agencies along the route, including the New Orleans Police Department and Louisiana State Police, turning a local missing-person case into a three-state public safety operation.

Authorities say Gillum planned to travel to New Orleans and carry out a mass shooting before killing himself by suicide by cop. Multiple reports identified the intended target as the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, known as Jazz Fest, which was scheduled to run from Thursday, April 23 through May 3, 2026. ABC News said the festival drew about 460,000 people the previous year, a scale that underscored the potential reach of the threat.

Gillum has been identified in multiple reports as a former Chapel Hill police officer who worked there for 15 years and resigned in 2019 after more than two decades in law enforcement. Some reports also said he later worked as a detention officer and deputy. He faces a charge of making terroristic threats in Orleans Parish and was being held in the Okaloosa County jail pending extradition to Louisiana.

For Alamance County, the case began with a family’s missing-person call and ended with a Florida arrest that prevented what investigators described as a cross-border attack on a major public festival. For Burlington, it showed how ARTIC can push a local intelligence system far beyond city limits when the threat moves with the suspect.