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A Louisiana grand jury declined to indict a former Chapel Hill police officer who was accused of plotting a mass shooting in New Orleans, court records show.
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Louisiana authorities charged Christopher Gillum, 45, of the Alamance County town of Haw River, in May and accused him of “terrorizing” and communicating he was going to commit violence “with the intent of causing members of the general public to be in sustained fear of their safety.”
Gillum was arrested April 21 by the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, which found a handgun and roughly 200 rounds of ammunition in his hotel room, The News & Observer previously reported. .
An Orleans Parish grand jury declined to indict Gillum on the terrorizing charge June 24, and the state dropped the charges soon after. The Associated Press first reported the grand jury’s decision Wednesday.
Louisiana Attorney General press secretary Lester Duhé wrote in a Thursday statement that Gillum was taken to a treatment facility upon his release, to the best of the office’s understanding.
The case against Gillum faced several issues of jurisdiction, Duhé wrote:
Duhé also provided a statement to The N&O from Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill.
Murrill said law enforcement concluded Gillum would likely target the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which was set to begin a few days after his arrest.
But the statements Gillum allegedly made to family members were vague and “did not directly state an intent to carry out any crimes in Louisiana,” Murrill said.
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“Though the Grand Jury declined charges based on these facts, I want to thank state and federal law enforcement officials who coordinated and successfully stopped this individual in Florida from carrying out whatever it was he was planning, wherever he might have been planning to carry it out,” Murrill said.
North Carolina Attorney General spokesperson Nazneen Ahmed wrote Thursday that no district attorney has referred the case to the Attorney General’s office for prosecution.
The N&O is awaiting a response from the Alamance County district attorney and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of North Carolina — the district that Alamance County is in — on whether their offices are able to charge Gillum and plan to do so.
Gillum worked for the Chapel Hill Police Department for over 15 years, Chapel Hill town spokesperson Alex Carrasquillo told The N&O in April. He was a sworn officer from 2004 until resigning in 2019. He returned as a non-sworn employee in 2024 and resigned again.
Gillum was also a police officer for the town of Carolina Beach from October 2019 to October 2020 and a deputy sheriff at the Orange County Sheriff’s Office from January to September 2025, personnel records show. He resigned from both positions.
Gillum was suspended in 2010 while working for Chapel Hill police, records show. The town of Chapel Hill did not disclose the details of the 2010 suspension, citing North Carolina public records law.
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This story was originally published August 13, 2026 at 1:26 PM.