One day after taking to Twitter to threaten the Superior Court Building in Phoenix and promising a deadly shootout with law enforcement officers, bomb tweeting suspect Laquint H. Cherry, age 18, has been arrested by Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Deputies. Cherry, a local area resident, was tracked by Sheriff’s Office detectives in less than 10 hours to a hotel room near 43rd Avenue and the I-10.
In tweets made following the announcement of a guilty verdict in the Jodi Arias trial, Cherry bragged that he:
“planted some IEDs in the #jodi arias Superior Court room in Phoenix Arizona tomorrow I’ll become a HERO and also shot by pigs once I unload”
Patrol and Enforcement Support Bureau Deputy Chief David Trombi said in a statement released by MCSO, “A bomb threat was recently directed at our new Sheriff’s Headquarters under construction downtown and an actual bomb was mailed to the Sheriff, but was intercepted. Therefore, our awareness for these kinds of threats is heightened and an increase in security was in place for today’s scheduled court case involving inmate Arias.”
“We will arrest everyone connected with these kinds of reckless ambitions,” Arpaio said.
“The investigation into this threat is not over. Additionally, I am concerned that more dangerous individuals or groups have designs of causing loss of life with either sophisticated explosives or homemade bombs. Because of this, every threat to harm is taken seriously,” Arpaio concluded.
Cherry was detained for several hours beginning at 9 a.m. at the Value Place motel at 1360 N. 43rd Avenue in Phoenix. At first Cherry resisted efforts of the Sheriff’s Office to have him surrender peacefully. Instead, he continued to tweet threatening messages about not being taken alive and threated to kill the cops surrounding him. Eventually, Cherry was arrested without incident.
Christina Hogan, who claimed to be Cherry’s girlfriend of just a few months, was on the premises with him at the motel. She was questioned and released. Hogan said she met Cherry after friending him on Facebook.
Cherry was booked into Fourth Avenue Jail on a class 4 felony charge related to acts of terrorism.