North Somerset man accused of planning mass shooting & bombing attack
A man built firearms and explosives for a "revenge" plan on ex-classmates before he was shot by police, a court heard
Last updated 4th Oct 2023
A man with a "macabre interest" in the Dunblane attacker built firearms and explosives for a "revenge" plan on ex-classmates before he was shot by police, a court heard.
Warehouse worker Reed Wischhusen, 32, of Wick St Lawrence, a small village in Somerset, wrote of a "hitman-style attack" on 10 people, shooting dead teachers and throwing bombs at his former school and killing police staff, prosecutors say.
It is alleged over a "sustained period", Wischhusen, who is fascinated with mass shootings and infamous killers, compiled an "armoury" of homemade weapons including pistols, sub-machine guns and a shotgun, as well as ammunition, bombs, grenades and poison, to be kept at his "quiet house".
On November 28 2022, police officers were forced to shoot Wischhusen three times after he pointed a handgun at them while they searched the house for weapons, a trial jury at Bristol Crown Court heard on Tuesday.
Five officers attended the address after receiving intelligence about him converting blank firearms into lethal weapons.
Wischhusen, who survived and was in hospital for four months before his arrest, denies having an explosive substance with intent to endanger life, having an explosive substance, possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, possessing ammunition with intent to endanger life and possessing a prohibited firearm without a certificate.
Jonathan Rees KC, opening the trial, said: "(Wischhusen's) quiet house and its outhouse to the rear of it contained a dark secret.
"Over a sustained period of time, Mr Wischhusen, who had a macabre interest in infamous killers such as Thomas Hamilton of Dunblane and Raoul Moat in the UK, and the 'cop hater' Ralph McLean in the US, and also in mass shootings and bombings such as the Columbine Shooting and the Oklahoma Bombing, set about attempting unlawfully to build - in his own words - a 'small armoury' of firearms and explosives."
The prosecutor added the "infamy" of Hamilton, who in 1996 committed the worst mass shooting in UK history at Dunblane Primary School, and violent gunman Moat, "seemingly appealed" to the defendant.
In a 1,700 word document written by Wischhusen, he said: "Revenge is on my mind, it's a powerful motivator."
Jurors heard phase one of Wischhusen's alleged revenge plan was to kill 10 people using a converted pistol with a silencer, while wearing disguised clothing and a wig.
Mr Rees told jurors the defendant had listed ex-classmates, teachers and police staff, who he believed had wronged him in the past, as targets.
Wischhusen planned to spare two police staff so they would feel "survivor's guilt", citing Hamilton as inspiration for this, the prosecutor said.
He would then walk into his old school, Priory School, in Worle, to shoot and kill teachers and throw pipe bombs before evading police, the court was told.
The alleged plan would culminate in an attack on Avon and Somerset Police's headquarters, where he would either plant and detonate pressure cooker bombs before opening fire on staff with sub-machine guns or ambush officers and enter the building to let off explosives, the prosecutor claimed.
After this he planned to kill himself, the court heard.
Mr Wischhusen insists it was all merely a fantasy.
Mr Rees said Wischhusen took "real, concrete steps" to compile the weapons and that his writings about them were "no fantasy at all".
The trial continues.
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