I’ve posted about Yunsong Zhao before. He’s the former Virginia Tech student from China who was arrested back in January after trying to purchase 5000 bullets. After police arrested him for allegedly having an illegal 30-round magazine for an AR-15, charges against him were dropped for lack of evidence. Previously, I was under the impression that Zhao illegally kept the AR-15 on campus, however, according to the most recent report, Zhao stored the gun at the campus police department. That did not stop the school from expelling him for the unauthorized possession of a knife on campus.
Another disturbing aspect to the case besides the fact that Zhao kept an AR-15 on campus and tried to buy 5000 bullets was that Zhao owned a decommissioned police car that still had police markings on it, and was actively searching on how to purchase body armor. My thought was that he would try to disguise himself as a police officer to commit some type of crime. However, his fascination with police may go a little deeper than that.
…he had attracted the attention of authorities by owning a Ford Crown Victoria, a vehicle often used by police agencies; shopping for police lights; following and recording police officers; carrying a backpack bearing a police patch; wearing fingerless black gloves and camouflage; and possessing a baton and zip ties that police sometimes used as handcuffs. A Roanoke indoor shooting range had barred Zhao and a pawn shop had asked him to leave after he spent three hours inside “aiming his gun around the aisles,” the papers said.
While possibly not acting in a criminal manner, he sure seems to have acted in a reckless manner with a side order of an unhealthy obsession.
After Zhao had posted bond from his arrest he was taken into ICE custody. He is now willingly leaving the country going to Canada before heading back to China.
Real Crime with Trench Reynolds 