DENVER – Travis Reinking, the man suspected of killing four people at a Waffle House outside of Nashville on Sunday, was carrying a Colorado ID card with him when he was arrested Monday, Tennessee authorities said, and may have lived here for some time.
The card is presumably the same Colorado ID card that Reinking, 29, was carrying last July when he was arrested for breaching a White House security barrier.
An incident report obtained by Scripps affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. shows that Reinking was carrying a Colorado commercial driver’s license, along with a debit card, an iPhone and $157 in cash when he was arrested in July 2017.
In the incident, Reinking allegedly told a U.S. Secret Service officer he needed to get into the White House to “speak with POTUS.”
He had been blocking one of the pedestrian entrances, and said he was “a sovereign citizen” who “has a right to inspect the grounds,” according to the report. When the officer told Reinking again to stop blocking the entrance, he took his tie off and “balled it into a fist” before walking past the officer and the security guard, according to the report.
“Do what you need to do. Arrest me if you have too [sic],” he told the officer, according to the report.
But the officer grabbed him and escorted him outside, where he was arrested for unlawful entry.
Additionally, Reinking appears to have lived in Salida, Colo. for some time in early 2017 and possibly in 2016.
A “Word on the Street” column published in the Salida-based Mountain Mail in January 2017 shows that Reinking, who described himself as being from Salida, was asked, “What makes you happy?”
He responded, “True love. Just because it’s the best thing that can happen in life.”
On Monday, The Mountain Mail published another story confirming that Reinking had a Salida connection and that he was the man interviewed in the “Word on the Street” column.
Reinking’s Facebook page also shows that several of his just 13 “friends” live in Salida and work for a crane service. Reinking’s father also owns a crane rental service in Illinois, where Reinking was living before moving to the Nashville area last fall, according to law enforcement authorities.
Nashville Police Lt. Carlos Lara said Monday after Reinking was arrested that in addition to the Colorado ID, Reinking was also found with a semi-automatic gun, a holster, a flashlight, and ammunition.
He said a tip led to Reinking’s arrest.
Though Colorado authorities told Denver7 Monday they were unable to discuss Reinking’s driver’s license, the D.C. police report confirms it was a commercial license, which drivers have to be medically cleared for.
In order to obtain a DOT medical card to qualify for a CDL, drivers have to clear a medical examination report that determines whether or not they are fit. Included in that evaluation is a mental health review. There have been some questions raised about Reinking’s mental fitness stemming from the Washington, D.C. incident and other incidents in Illinois.
In the Illinois incidents, Reinking’s parents had told police that their son believed Taylor Swift was stalking him and that he’d made suicidal comments.
After the White House incident, Illinois law enforcement took away four of his guns, then returned them to his father, who in turn passed them back to the younger Reinking, according to the FBI. One of the weapons was believed to have been used in Sunday's shooting.
It’s unclear what Reinking meant when he declared himself a “sovereign citizen” during the White House incident, but the FBI tracks sovereign citizens and considers some of them to be domestic terrorists, they wrote in 2011.
