Texas teen facing charges over ‘credible threat’ of violent ‘retribution’ at Turning Point USA conference: FBI

The FBI said a Texas teenager aligned with the “incel” – or “involuntary celibate” – movement made a “credible” threat of violence seeking “retribution” at a recent Turning Point USA conference in Florida. 

Alejandro Richard Velasquez Gomez, 19, of San Antonio, remained behind bars Sunday. 

According to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in San Antonio, FBI Phoenix alerted FBI San Antonio of Gomez’s concerning social media activity. The teen — who presented online as LatinoZoomer or MestizoZoomer — allegedly shared a warning on July 18 to his Instagram account that the first day of the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit (SAS) would be “the day of retribution.” 

“I will have revenge against all of humanity, which all of you will pay for my suffering. SAS will be the turning point of the LatinoZoomer lore,” Gomez wrote, according to the complaint. 

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The event was held from July 22 through July 24 in Tampa. It featured speeches from several well-known conservative pundits, including former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Thousands of students from across the U.S. were in attendance. 

The teen’s online comments, paired with the fact that Gomez had bought a plane ticket to fly from Austin to Tampa on July 22 but canceled the ticket the night before his flight, amounted to a credible threat, according to the complaint. Gomez’s verbiage on social media mirrored that of 22-year-old Elliot Rodger, who in 2014, by gunshot, stabbing and vehicle ramming, killed six students and wounded more than a dozen others near the University of California, Santa Barbara. Rodger died by suicide after the rampage. 

The FBI said Gomez’s post, showing himself sitting in a car, mimicked a similar video that Rodger posted to YouTube the day before the 2011 carnage in which he too promised a “day of retribution against humanity” and lashed out against women who had rejected his romantic or sexual advances. 

Gomez allegedly admitted to an FBI agent that he intended the July 18 post to evoke Rodger, whom he knew about through extensive online research. Rodger is considered a symbol of the “incel” movement, an ideology that holds “an extreme hatred towards, and endorses violence against, women and sexually active people,” according to the complaint. 

The complaint did not clarify why the event was allegedly targeted, but Tampa police took the threat seriously and obtained an arrest warrant on July 21 charging him with sending written or electronic threats to kill, injure or conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism, a second-degree felony.

Gomez was arrested in San Antonio on July 22 and charged with making threatening interstate communications. After the FBI conducted a search warrant and seized his electronics, the teen was also charged with possession of child pornography for images allegedly found on his phone.

Turning Point USA, founded in 2012 by Charlie Kirk, promotes conservative activism in schools and college campuses. After this year’s annual summit, the non-profit’s legal counsel sent a cease-and-desist letter to ABC’s The View for its false tirade about the conservative group, setting the record straight that Turning Point USA condemned neo-Nazi protesters outside the Tampa conference and at no point let them into the event. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.