ks-South Florida man shared mass-shooting fantasies with school shooter, deputies say

Angie DiMichele, South Florida Sun-Sentinel on Apr 30, 2025

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LOXAHATCHEE, Fla. — A Palm Beach County man who had an arsenal of weapons and ammunition and allegedly picked seven different places to conduct a mass shooting has been arrested, authorities said Wednesday.

Damien Blade Allen, 22, was booked into the Palm Beach County jail on Tuesday, facing one count of written threats of a mass shooting, one count of unlawful use of a two-way communication device and one count of unlawful use of a badge or indica of authority, stemming from impersonating a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputy.

Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office detectives learned of Allen through an FBI Guardian tip, similar to crime stoppers, according to a probable cause affidavit. Throughout the last year, Allen had been communicating on TikTok with the 15-year-old girl who carried out a mass shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, in December, killing a student and a teacher and injuring six other people before shooting and killing herself.

In early April, FBI agents in Milwaukee reviewed content on the Wisconsin mass shooter’s cellphone that was found on her the day of the shooting, revealing direct messages with Allen, the probable cause affidavit said.

Their messages between at least May and September 2024 discussed Allen’s and the Wisconsin shooter’s weapons and ammunition, possible places to carry out mass shootings and romantic interest in one another, the affidavit showed.

Sheriff Ric Bradshaw and Capt. Randy Foley at a news conference Wednesday afternoon said Allen had 12,000 rounds of ammunition and what are believed to be fully automatic guns. Investigators are still trying to determine if he owned all of the weapons legally, Foley said.

“Unquestionably, this is one of the best arrests that I’ve seen in a long time, that has prevented people from dying because I guarantee you, he was going to do that,” Bradshaw said.

Allen wrote in one message to the girl: “I got 7 places I would, Strike the police dept. also, (Guerrilla) warfare tactics, Ambushing and blitz,” according to the affidavit.

Aside from a police department, the locations Allen mentioned are not specified in the affidavit or in any of the text messages included. Foley said at the news conference that he recalled one being a church and that the others were “racially motivated.”

In another message last June, about six months before the Wisconsin shooting, Allen wrote to the girl, “We go down together.” She replied, “Correct. I love you,” the affidavit said.

Allen had stopping communicating in the chat with the girl prior to the Wisconsin school shooting and had not used it since, according to the affidavit. He had been chatting online almost every day with numerous people.

Allen’s social media accounts also showed him wearing an authentic Class B PBSO uniform, the affidavit said, including patches in the proper locations, a name tag that read “Allen” and an Emergency Field Force pin. He had the same type of gun belt and holsters worn by members of the Sheriff’s Office, along with a gun and Taser.

In an Instagram video posted in October 2022, Allen was seen in the driver’s seat of a Ford Crown Victoria, a car commonly used by law enforcement, with “a computer that looks like a PBSO laptop in a laptop stand,” the affidavit said.

FBI agents initially believed that Allen was a deputy based on the social media posts, according to the affidavit. FBI Miami agents contacted the Sheriff’s Office’s Internal Affairs and determined he was not a deputy.

A PBSO detective filed a petition for a temporary Risk Protection Order in court on Monday, which allows law enforcement to take guns and ammunition from the person who the petition is filed against for a set period of time. A judge granted the request.

Prosecutors are seeking that Allen remain in custody while the case is pending.

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