Man police say threatened attack at Knights parade faces terrorism charge
A man who said he intended to “cause many deaths” by using a truck to drive through the crowd during Saturday’s Golden Knights victory parade is facing a felony charge of threatening or making a false statement about committing an act of terrorism.
Anthony Zuccaro, 31, of Las Vegas, was arrested Saturday at about 2:20 a.m. after he made several claims about plans for acts of mass violence and seeking a “suicide by cop” situation at the Golden Knights Stanley Cup celebration on the Strip, which began at 5 p.m., according the Metropolitan Police Department.
The incident started late Friday morning when Zuccaro phoned a mental health support service in Nevada about having suicidal or homicidal thoughts and agreed to meet police at a gas station at 6135 W. Russell Road, police reported.
While officers tried to detain him, Zuccaro tried to flee on his motorcycle, but police caught him, then released him and he retrieved his motorcycle that afternoon, according to police.
Then about 6 p.m., he called the support service again multiple times, mentioned his intention to commit violence at the parade and instigate suicide by cop but when police called him, he would not permit officers to speak to him.
Police soon received word from call takers that Zuccaro had been on the phone for hours with a crisis center in Arizona about “wanting to commit homicidal acts and then suicide” and committing an act of “mass violence at the Vegas Golden Knights” parade, police reported.
Zuccaro stated he was upset about damage to his motorcycle after he was detained at the gas station, that he broke side mirrors and smashed windows of various cars including police vehicles and “attacked a kid on another bike,” according to officers.
During the conversations with the Arizona crisis call takers, he said he intended “to drive a vehicle into the gathered crowd” and “he hoped to incite mass panic and cause many deaths” before committing suicide by cop, police said.
“Anthony continued to state that during his attack he would target police as he stated he wants to kill every police officer at the event,” according to police.
Zuccaro claimed he considered “getting a truck and driving it through the crowd” or to “make bombs using gasoline” to use to target bystanders and police,” police stated.
He said he thought he could get away with it because no one would know who he was and since he did not have his actual address on his driver’s license, police would not know where to find him and that he could escape by ditching his car in the desert.
Police did find Zuccaro and took him into custody and booked him into the Clark County Detention Center on suspicion of felony threatening or making a false terroristic threat, officers reported.
Contact Jeff Burbank at jburbank@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0382. Follow him @JeffBurbank2 on Twitter.
