Bail set for Las Vegas man charged with making terror threats
A 33-year-old man charged with making terroristic threats was ordered held on $250,000 bail Thursday, after authorities said he boasted on Facebook about a desire to carry out a mass shooting in Las Vegas.
A friend of Antonio Antunez contacted police last month after seeing a post in which he wielded a handgun and said he would “shoot up Vegas,” according to the Metropolitan Police Department arrest report. Antunez suggested in his posts and to police in an interview that he wanted upward of 200 people from a Las Vegas street gang dead in retaliation for an attack he had suffered, the report said.
“I’m gonna finish all 200 of you,” he wrote.
Deputy Public Defender Layla Medina told the Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Ann Zimmerman that Antunez, a father of two, had been honorably discharged from the Navy and has lived in Las Vegas since he was 14.
Police said in the report that Antunez expressed a desire to livestream the shooting, when he wrote, “Don’t any of you worry, I’ll make sure you guys don’t miss the massacre Im (sic) gonna do in vegas,” and “I’ll go live as soon as I start shooting.”
Antunez’s posts also were seen by someone in Italy who contacted authorities, according to the report.
Zimmerman ordered Antunez back in court next week.
“I don’t know if this was a cry for attention or if this was really something you intended to follow through on, but it was very frightening to read the posts that you made,” Zimmerman said. “I think you’re a danger to our community at this point.”
Clark County District Attorney Pete Thunell also called the posts “very frightening” and “very concerning.”
In an unrelated case, Antunez was charged in July with two counts of lewdness with a child under the age of 14 after he was accused of inappropriately groping a girl in 2013 and showing her pornography, according to his arrest report.
He was arrested July 18 at the VA Medical Center, 6900 N. Pecos Road., the report said.
Antunez is set to appear in District Court on Friday for a competency hearing in that case, court records show. He remained in the Clark County Detention Center without bail.
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.