Police: Cornell Student Bought Rifle to Shoot ICE
“Healey-Parera told police he bought the rifle to ‘shoot an ICE agent as a last resort if they were to come to his home in Ithaca,’” according to police.
Police in upstate New York arrested a Cornell University student late last week after authorities said he brought a rifle and ammunition onto the campus of Syracuse University and told investigators he had contemplated using the weapon against federal immigration officers.
“Healey-Parera told police he bought the rifle to “shoot an ICE agent as a last resort if they were to come to his home in Ithaca,” according to details from a sworn police affidavit.”
The statement, now part of the court record, quickly became the most alarming element of the case. Investigators say it surfaced after campus police stopped the student near Syracuse University’s Schine Student Center, one of the busiest hubs on campus, when officers noticed him carrying what appeared to be a rifle case.
Authorities identified the student as 22-year-old Mateu Healey-Parera, a Cornell student who had traveled from Ithaca to Syracuse by bus earlier that day.
Syracuse University Department of Public Safety officers approached Healey-Parera and began asking questions about what he was carrying. Police say he initially told officers the case contained a tripod.
After further questioning, however, Healey-Parera acknowledged the case contained a rifle he had purchased earlier that day.
Police later confirmed the firearm had been purchased earlier that day at a sporting goods store in nearby Nedrow. According to investigators, Healey-Parera bought a 1905 Rock Island .30-06 rifle along with two boxes of ammunition totaling roughly forty rounds.
Bringing a firearm onto school property is illegal under New York law. Officers arrested Healey-Parera at the scene and charged him with criminal possession of a weapon on school grounds.
During a subsequent interview with police, investigators pressed him on why he had purchased the weapon. According to the officer’s affidavit, Healey-Parera initially suggested the rifle was intended for marksmanship practice and home defense.
The interviewing officer noted that the particular rifle involved is not typically considered a beginner firearm and is not commonly used for home defense, according to the affidavit summarized in local reporting.
When questioned further about his views toward law enforcement and immigration authorities, the explanation changed.
“Police records indicate Healey-Parera told investigators he feared Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents might illegally detain him or surround his residence in Ithaca, prompting him to purchase the firearm.”
Investigators also noted that Healey-Parera had recently attended a protest at Cornell University involving an arms dealer speaking on campus. According to police, he became upset by the presence of officers at the protest and later began considering purchasing a firearm.
Following the arrest, Healey-Parera was transported to the Onondaga County Justice Center jail. Court records show he later appeared before a judge and was released after posting $50,000 bail in the form of a cashier’s check.
After his release, authorities transferred him to a local hospital under New York’s mental hygiene law for evaluation, Syracuse police officials said.
His defense attorney, Jordan McNamara, argued in court that the firearm purchase itself had been legal and that many of his client’s actions that day were constitutionally protected.
“Much of what is alleged that day was protected by his Constitutional rights,” McNamara said, adding that his client “was not a threat to anyone.”
Separately, a judge approved a temporary extreme risk protection order preventing Healey-Parera from possessing or purchasing firearms while the case proceeds. A hearing to determine whether a final order will be imposed is scheduled in the state Supreme Court in Ithaca.
For years, calls to “abolish ICE” have circulated through campus protests, activist slogans, and online campaigns.
According to police, in this case, the rhetoric moved a step further. Investigators say a student purchased a rifle, bought ammunition, and told officers he viewed shooting federal immigration agents as a possible “last resort.”
That is the point where political rhetoric stops being theoretical and starts showing up in a criminal affidavit.
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Comments
He is a moron and mentally ill. There is little reason for anyone to bother him at home as long as he does nothing to break the law such as bringing a riffle onto school property. Whoops.
This moron has been scared even stupider by the democrats who spend their time demonizing ICE when they’re not demonizing Trump. I’d say I hope they’re happy now although I think they will never be happy.
I don’t think he’s a moron or mentally ill. I think he’s just a young man who’s vulnerable to Democrat propaganda and has been sold a bill of goods. The Dems are 100% responsible for every aspect of his predicament, and yet I’m sure he still thinks the sun shines out of their posteriors.
One could, of course, make the same argument about many to most of the mass shooters. That argument fails to make them less dangerous. And they still committed the crimes. Ignorance of the law is not a valid defense.
The difference is that they are actually shooting people, whereas he seems to have had no intention of harming anyone, but was simply preparing to defend himself in case he was to be attacked by those evil ICE agents whom the Democrats have told him he should be afraid of.
He’s no different from a law-abiding young black man who is terrified of the police because the Democrats have told him that policemen think black lives don’t matter, and are therefore at any moment likely to gun him down in the street. Now I think we’d all agree that if a crazy cop were in fact to start shooting at him for no reason he would be entitled to defend himself by shooting back. So how could we blame him if he were to purchase a weapon for the purpose of defending himself should such an event ever occur? Of course since in the real world cops don’t do that, he would never have occasion to use the weapon for that purpose, but in the meantime he would have its protection in case something that is likely happens, such as him being mugged.
WHO hijacked Millhouse’s account? This post make sense and puts the blame on the stupidity of those supporting DEMOcrats! In addition, he alludes to the fact the youngsters are brainwashed by lefist rhetoric and “education”! Wow – I even upvoted this!!
I always blame Democrats when they’re actually responsible for something, which is most of the time. When have you ever heard me say something good about Democrats? Democrats are rarely good; but like all bad people, sometimes they’re accused of things they haven’t done.
His parents gave him a hyphenated name. He never stood a chance.
The foul leftist campus activists create burdens of fear and outrage too heavy to be born, but they never personally touch them with their little finger.
Cornell should expel him.
Another reason to be rid of dual Citizenship for adults. For minor child through age 19 sure let them have a year between their 18th and 19th birthday to choose which Nation’s Citizenship to accept/reject. Make it easy by applying it on the Selective Service sign up and make NLT than age 19 the cut off for imposing the consequences for failure to sign up. Apply it to both male and females. For adults who currently have dual Citizenship give them a year to decide to reject other National Citizenship and retain their US Citizenship. Make it simple, bring a notarized letter to the Post Office and their Foreign Passport to be forwarded to the State Dept and the Foreign Nation notified this individual has renounced that Nation’s Citizenship. If they want to keep the Foreign Citizenship they bring the same sort of letter but surrender their US passport and are given a temporary non extendable 60 day visa. They gotta provide an itinerary with flight info for departure to the State Dept. Easy. Simple. Straight forward.
That would require a constitutional amendment.
It seems that someone doesn’t like the constitution.
Anyway, what has that got to do with this story? I didn’t see anything in the story about him having dual citizenship.
Another would-be domestic terrorist and Dhimmi-crat.
Shocker.
An unconstitutional and dangerous law. And it’s not as if he were actually bringing the weapon to the school; he was only technically on its property because that’s where the bus stop was, and it didn’t occur to him to look for another stop off-campus.
Another unconstitutional law. He’s been deprived of a constitutional right without any hearing, and will only have a hearing later where he can challenge it, and at which he will not be eligible for legal aid.
The real question is why he feared that ICE agents might want to arrest him. There’s nothing in the article to indicate that he’s here illegally, and from Chief’s comment I gather there’s something elsewhere saying that he’s a US citizen, so obviously ICE would have no interest in him.
Literally the only reason he would be so afraid of ICE that he thought to arm himself against them illegally detaining him or surrounding his residence is that he’s been listening to cynical Democrat propaganda claiming that ICE is some rogue operation that goes after US citizens just because of their skin color, and therefore that anyone who isn’t white is in danger of being arrested or gunned down just for lulz.
The Dems know very well that this is not true, but they say it because it gets them support. And as a result they frightened this young man to the point where he thought he needed to arm himself in self-defense.
There’s also the fact that he was concerned about an arms dealer speaking on campus. Why would he want to protest that, and why would it upset him to see police at that protest? The answer is more Dem propaganda, and naive young people who fall for it. Now he’s in deep stuff because of Dem propaganda, combined with Dem unconstitutional laws; and the really sad part is that he undoubtedly still thinks the Dems are right and just, and doesn’t understand that they’re responsible for every aspect of his misfortune.
Your logic fails here.
He bought the rifle, hopped on a bus and got off at a stop on campus. Why?
He came there another city; presumably he would be intending to head back tohis residence near Cornell, about an hour away, so why the stop on campus? Transfers to an out of town bus aren’t done at random stops, and he was clearly walking somewhere on campus, since the campus cops stopped him near Shine Center. He was a Cornell student, not Syracuse University student
And the mental health hold was most likely not because of the gun but because he was making irrational statements.
And even a fool wouldn’t buy a long gun for home defense, surely, but a 30;06 is great for sniping helpless students from a bell tower. I can understand the concern.
He was on the campus because that is where the bus stops. That’s where he got off the bus from Ithaca to Syracuse, and that’s where he was catching the bus back to Ithaca.
It’s common for these intercity buses to start and end on a university campus. They often have a second stop off campus before getting on the highway, but it would never have occurred to him to look for one.
This is not how the Centro bus system works at all. We have a hub system. He would have to transfer at the hub from a bus from Nedrow to get anywhere. He purposely chose a bus for SU rather than one going back home.
He wouldn’t be taking Centro back to Ithaca. He’d be taking an intercity bus such as Ourbus, whose first stop in Syracuse is at Syracuse University, right outside the Schine Center. So he’d get off there and take Centro to Washington & Clinton, and then another Centro straight down Salina to Nedrow. Then he’d retrace his steps, taking the Centro up Salina to Washington, and then to the Schiine Center, where he’d wait for the Ourbus back to Ithaca.
We’re often told that an AR-15 is a good weapon for home defense, and that many people have it for just that purpose.
Slight difference in ballistics between 30.06 and .223/5.56.
Yes, there is, but Dolce wrote “Even a fool wouldn’t buy a long gun for home defense, surely”. That’s not correct.
I spoke to the one of four witnesses who reported him while the SU DPS missed him walking by their patrol car. He was not at a bus stop. He was walking on the sidewalks towards the busiest student center on campus. Read my post on here as to how the buses work.
As I wrote above, the Ourbus back to Ithaca leaves from the bus stop right outside the Schine Center. So if he got Centro from Nedrow he would have got off the SY-40 at Waverley & University, and have walked the short distance along Waverley to the Ourbus stop.
That might be a 1903 Springfield rifle manufactured by Ro k Island. The 30-06 is a fighting rifle caliber!
If he was buying the weapon to shoot ICE officers if they came to his house it’s an odd choice.
But does he know that? If he believes Democrat propaganda then he’s afraid of guns and doesn’t know much about them.
I suspect that ICE’s standard body armor might not stop the .30-06 round.
“roughly 40 rounds”??? 2 boxes of 20 rounds = 40 rounds.
A Cornell student who lives in Ithaca bought a rifle to protect his home and took the rifle to Syracuse… why not? 🤣
He bought it from a store in Nedrow, which is a suburb immediately adjacent to Syracuse. He took the bus from Ithaca to Syracuse, then presumably local transport to Nedrow, purchased his weapon, and made his way back to the bus stop to Ithaca, which is right outside the Schine Center where he was arrested.
Hello all. This article is not accurate. I spoke to one of the eye witnesses that turned him in. Four CITIZENS reported him. The SU DPS completely failed to see him. The man I spoke to actually told me they watched him walk right past an SU DPS patrol car with the rifle case and he called it in. He was stunned the DPS agent was looking at a phone instead of catching this. Even local news reported it was students who turned it in.
And I don’t buy the convenient ICE excuse for this one at all. He buys the gun in Nedrow. First he would have had to take a bus from Ithaca into Syracuse downtown to catch a bus that stops in Nedrow (just South of the city line). In order to get to SU he would have had to take that same bus back to the bus hub downtown and either catch a connector bus to SU or walk the long uphill walk to campus. If he only intended to buy a gun and go home, he would have grabbed the bus at the hub.
I believe that he was here to do a campus shooting and they need to dig a lot deeper on this.
Huh? What is this “convenient ICE excuse ” you speak of? From all the references in the story, this appears to be locally handled up to and including the local court. I don’t see any involvement of ICE, other than the suspect’s use of it as a reason to buy the rifle.
Back in the day, .30-06 (7.62mm) was the caliber of my weapon in basic training (M-14). Hardly a home defense weapon. I think it was an M-1 that Whitman used at UT many decades ago; same caliber. This guy was harboring bad thoughts.
While the M14 does shoot a 30 caliber projectile, it is chambered in the slightly shorter 308 caliber.
While both 30.06 and 308 are excellent, as they are hard hitting long range calibers, the 223 caliber is a far better choice for home defense.
30 caliber bullets will penetrate too many walls.
223 fragments on impact
From the suspect’s comments: “…he feared Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents might illegally detain him…”.
The bus from Ithaca to Syracuse makes its first stop at SU, directly in front of Schine.
It seems his legal/illegal status is salient to this situation – why is noone reporting on it?
Probably because he’s a citizen, or a legal resident, and thus ICE would have no interest in him whatsoever, but the Democrats have convinced sio many people that any one of us who doesn’t look white is in constant danger that some untrained ICE thug might take it into his peabrain head to arrest us. If he truly believed that crap, then it would make sense for him to make provision for that contingency by purchasing a weapon to defend himself. Since it is crap, he would never have occasion to actually use the weapon, unless he happened to be attacked by some actual criminal.
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