Man detained for posting a photo of himself holding a rifle tagged Ultra Music Festival
"Really? Right after the Vegas incident happened?"
A man was detained and questioned by police this past weekend after he posted a photo of himself holding a high powered rifle with the caption that seemingly targeted Ultra Music Festival.
Rayne Russell was apparently in Fort Lauderdale when he posted the photo to his Instagram account, according to 7News Miami. He was dressed in a dark gray T-shirt, jean shorts and a baseball cap while holding the firearm. The photo also showed a handgun with a silencer clearly visible on the table in front of Russell.
Russell captioned the photo “Ready for the weekend” with the hashtags “#tgif,” “#ultramusicfestival” and “#mmw2018”.
City of Miami Police quickly tracked down Russell on Sunday, the final day of Ultra Music Festival, and questioned him about the photo. He was later released after the festival concluded as the authorities determined he was not a threat to the public.
According to the police, it was discovered that Russell was from Jamaica and he apparently came to Miami for the festival. The guns in the photo are legally-owned by a family member.
Head of security for Ultra, Ray Martinez, disclosed that his social media command team were very much aware of Russell’s post before he was detained: “We were monitoring all the social media sites, and we saw a post that this individual had posted… Really? Right after the Vegas incident happened? We met together with the Miami Police Department and started our planning right from that moment and looked at the lessons learned — what you can learn from those incidences. I’m very confident that between Miami Police Department and FBI they were able to determine that it was not a credible threat.”
Ultra Music Festival organizers increased security at this year’s event, partly due to the mass shooting that took place at a music festival Las Vegas in October 15, which left 58 people dead and over 500 injured.
Aside from this incident, Ultra was largely a success, mainly due to the highly anticipated and widely discussed reunion of Swedish House Mafia after a five year hiatus.
View the photo that sparked the investigation below
Harrison is Mixmag's East Coast Editor. Follow him on Twitter here