One of the four people arrested in connection to what local authorities reportedly feared was a “Las Vegas-style shooting” plot has denied any plan to commit mass violence.
While Ricardo Rodriguez, 44, acknowledged the presence of a large stash of firearms, ammunition, and combat equipment at the Maven Hotel in Denver where he and some friends were staying, he insisted the weapons were part of a collection.
Richard Platt, the man who owned most of the weapons, was “collecting them for his friends,” Rodriguez told local CBS affiliate KCNC on Sunday.
“He had a lot of guns, he did,” Rodriguez said of Platt in an interview from jail. “I don’t know what his intentions were — from my understanding selling them and trading them. That was about it.”
Rodriguez was visiting Denver from Washington state and was planning a move to Colorado, the local outlet reported. He met Platt through mutual friends, who suggested they stay at the Maven Hotel, less than a mile from Coors Field, where Major League Baseball is hosting All-Star festivities this week, Rodriguez said.
“I wanted to go to the All-Star show, wanted to be part of that,” he said.
Rodriguez, who said he builds guns and donates them to military veterans, was in possession of a 9 mm handgun and an AR-15 in his own hotel room. The host of firearms he observed inside Platt’s hotel room “kind of concerned me,” Rodriguez said, but he claimed he was told they were for trading.
“If he would have actively mentioned something like [a shooting plot], if he would have said something like that, no way I would have let anything like that happen,” he said. “I can tell you if I would have saw something like that, seen him preparing for something like that, I would have intervened. No way I would have let something like that happen.”
“I don’t think Richard Platt is the kind of person who would harm anybody,” Rodriguez added.
Along with Rodriguez, Denver police arrested 42-year-old Platt, 48-year-old Gabriel Rodriguez, and 43-year-old Kanoelehua Serikawa on Friday and seized 16 firearms. Ricardo Rodriguez later identified some of the firearms as sniper rifles and AK-47s. Police also took possession of body armor and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition.
Some officials speculated the firearms were part of a plan to kill baseball fans in Denver for the All-Star Game in a manner akin to 64-year-old Stephen Paddock’s murder of over 60 people from his Las Vegas hotel room in 2017, the Denver Post reported.
One of the four suspects reportedly wrote on Facebook that he planned to “go out in a big way” following a recent divorce, sources told the outlet.
Platt was arrested on charges of possession of a weapon by a previous offender, possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, and a warrant from another jurisdiction. Gabriel Rodriguez was also arrested following an investigation of possession of a weapon by a previous offender and possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute charges, while Ricardo Rodriguez was arrested on the same weapon possession charge. Serikawa was detained on a drug charge and an outstanding warrant.
The FBI said it was “aware of the arrest of four individuals at a hotel near the Major League Baseball All-Star Game venue” but that it does not suspect terrorism.
“We have no reason to believe this incident was connected to terrorism or a threat directed at the All-Star Game,” the FBI’s Denver Field Office said in a statement Sunday. “We are not aware of any threat to the All-Star Game events, venues, players, or the community at this time.”
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The Denver Police Department did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
