Somerset man Reed Wischhusen found guilty of planning ‘hitman-style’ mass shooting
A 32-year-old man who planned to carry out a “hitman-style” mass shooting has been found guilty of a string of weapons, ammunition and explosives charges.
Reed Wischhusen had a “macabre interest” in the Dunblane gunman Thomas Hamilton and Raoul Moat, along with US mass killers, Bristol Crown Court heard, and had built firearms and explosives to carry out a “hitman-style attack” on his former school.
In the attack he would deliberately target 10 people, as well as shoot dead teachers and attack Avon and Somerset Police headquarters.
The Lidl warehouse worker wrote down his plans in a document he dubbed “revenge”, the court heard.
The four-page document detailed targeting people who had bullied Wischhusen, as well as Avon and Somerset Police firearms licencing staff who twice rejected his shotgun certificate application.
Wischhusen insisted it was all a fantasy and that he had no intention of harming anyone named in it.
To carry out his plans he compiled an armoury of homemade weapons including pistols, sub-machine guns and a shotgun, as well as ammunition, bombs, grenades and poison.
Wischhusen’s plans were only stopped when uniformed officers visited the home he shared with his father in Wick Road, Wick St Lawrence, Somerset, in November last year, having received a tip-off about weapons.
During the search of his home, Wischhusen attempted to shoot himself in the head with a concealed pistol in his bathroom, before running downstairs with the gun to confront armed officers.
Fearing they were going to be killed, officers shot the defendant twice, and he spent several months recovering in hospital.
Following a 10-day trial, a jury found the defendant guilty of having an explosive substance with intent to endanger life, possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, possessing ammunition with intent to endanger life and possessing a prohibited firearm without a certificate.
He had previously admitted possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, possessing a prohibited firearm and possessing ammunition without a firearm certificate.
Judge Martin Picton had earlier directed the jury to find the defendant guilty of an eighth charge of having an explosive substance.
The judge ordered pre-sentence reports and remanded Wischhusen into custody until he is sentenced on 15 December.
“In terms of where we go from here, I would not be prepared to sentence without a pre-sentence report and I will order one and it will have to look at the issue of dangerousness,” the judge said.
“I think there should also be a psychiatric report because there are so many troubling features about the defendant’s conduct.”
