Neil Prescott charged with making threatening phone calls

By ERIC TUCKER
Associated Press

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (AP) -- Maryland prosecutors say a man accused of threatening to shoot up his workplace and identifying himself as "a joker" has been charged with misdemeanor telephone misuse.
 
Prince George's County State's Attorney Angela Alsobrooks says the charge is punishable by up to three years in prison. The charges against Neil E. Prescott were announced at a news conference Wednesday in Upper Marlboro.
 
The 28-year-old Crofton man was taken into custody last Friday after the threats were reported to police. He has been receiving an emergency psychiatric evaluation at a hospital. Police say they found ammunition and about two dozen weapons, including semi-automatic rifles and pistols, in his apartment.
 
The "joker" comment prompted concern because of a mass shooting a week earlier at a Colorado movie theater screening the latest Batman movie.

CROFTON, Md. - In the warrant obtained by ABC2News, authorities were convinced 28-year-old Neil E. Prescott was primed and ready to commit a mass shooting eerily similar to the one just last week in Colorado.

In the court documents, investigators say the suspect, facing termination threatened his supervisors at a company called Pitney Bowes in Prince George’s County saying to them on the phone "I am a joker, I'm gonna load my guns and blow everybody up."

That and another graphic threat to his supervisors was phoned into the Prince George's County Police leading them and Anne Arundel County authorities to take the Crofton man into custody early this morning.

“During a field interview with their officers, the individual was wearing a tee-shirt that said 'guns don't kill people. I do," said PG County Police Chief Mark Magaw in a press conference Friday afternoon.

In Prescott’s apartment investigators found 25 high powered semi-automatic firearms including a spike tactical assault rifle and several handguns. They would also seize a night scope for a high powered rifle along with 40 large steel boxes of ammunition. ( READ MORE )