Police outside the Queens Place Mall Monday (Citizen)
Jan. 5, 2021 By Allie Griffin
A 22-year-old man with a history of spewing far-right conspiracy theories online turned himself in to police early Tuesday morning for the bomb hoax at the Queens Place Mall a day before.
Louis Shenker called 911 and surrendered to police at around 3 a.m. Tuesday, police said. He is accused of planting a fake bomb in a vehicle parked inside the garage of the Queens Place Mall on Monday morning, according to the NYPD.
Police officers received a call at 8:40 a.m. Monday that a device with a battery hooked up to two propane tanks was sitting inside a black Tesla — believed to be stolen — at the parking garage.
The mall was evacuated and the NYPD Bomb Squad responded to the scene and determined that the device was a hoax meant to look like an explosive.
Shenker has since been arrested on charges of false bomb and hazardous substance, criminal possession of stolen property and abandonment of an animal. A dog that was inside the Tesla was safely recovered by police.
Explosive device hoax (NYPD via Twitter)
The bomb hoax is not Shenker’s first run-in with law enforcement. He was recently arrested for arson after he burned a Black Lives Matter poster affixed to a police barricade, NBC News reported.
The 22-year-old has also posted anti-mask statements and false claims that President Donald Trump won the election on his social media accounts — which have since been suspended.
He also hosts a podcast called “The Minuteman,” on which he regularly shares his far-right views, and has appeared on the conspiracy show InfoWars.
Shenker was reportedly expelled from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, for a controversy stemming from his alt-right views and actions.
His last known address was in Amherst, Massachusetts, police said.
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