🚓 Niceville Police arrested a man during a traffic stop after he admitted he planned to kill people, starting with his family.
🔫 Officers found multiple firearms, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and disturbing items at his home.
🛑 The suspect was Baker Acted, faces several charges, and had his weapons temporarily confiscated.
Niceville Police say they stopped a mass shooting from taking place in city limits.
Police Chief Mark Hayse announced the arrest at Niceville’s August City Council meeting during his monthly report. Mid Bay News made a records request for the arrest affidavit regarding the incident. We were told by Niceville Police’s public records custodian that “the arrest is still open/active” and therefore was not releasable as a public record.
He told the council and the crowd that his officers arrested the suspect, a man, after pulling him over on a traffic stop on a routine patrol.
“The person was just driving real slow and strange,” Hayse recounted to the council.
The chief then told the council that the man told the police officer he that he needed to be taken to jail, “because I’m out here to kill people.”
“He claimed he was hunting people,” Hayse recounted to the council chambers, “He was going to start with his family. They weren’t home, they were out of state – lucky for them.”
Hayse says that the office searched the car and found shotguns, pistols, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and loaded magazines inside the car.
According to an arrest affidavit and an application for a Baker Act obtained by Mid Bay News, a Niceville Police officer pulled over a car near Palm Boulevard for driving about 20 miles per hour in a 35 miles per hour zone.
The officer said the suspect, named as Ryan Vasilis Mosteferis, had a disagreement with his family and expressed to her that he wanted to kill them and himself.
After explaining his issues with his family – he confessed to the officer that he was driving on a suspended license in the hopes that he would be arrested and sent back to jail.
He told the officer at the scene that he wanted to kill his family – “The reality is I’m at the point where I’m either gonna blast someone else or blast myself and I just can’t take what my family’s done to m anymore so I went on the suspended license so I could go back to jail cause if I’m out I’m gonna fucking kill my relatives or something,” the report claims Mostefaris said, “they blame me for not taking care of my when he was dying 6 years ago.”
Ultimately, he said that he did not want to kill his uncle, which the report states lives in the area, or his father’s girlfriend – and told the officer he just wanted to go back to jail.
The officer then explained the Baker Act to him, searched him and called for backup. When her backup arrived, Mostefaris was taken to Fort Walton Beach Medical Center for evaluation and treatment.
Two guns were found in Mosteferis’s vehicle – a pistol and a shotgun. Along with the weapons, officers found four magazines for the pistol, 99 9mm rounds and 66 shotgun shells.
Mosteferis has a domestic violence injunction on his record.
According to the documentation obtained from the Niceville Police Department, Mosteferis’s family member told law enforcement the man had recently lost family members and was depressed.
Another family member explained to police that they handled his finances as a custodian and has power of attorney over them. They told police that Mosteferis had a negative interaction with a member of the public at a gas station which caused them to spiral into their current state.
Officers were able to obtain a temporary confiscation of the weapons, including several more found in his home, from the individual who was Baker Acted.
Also inside the home, Hayse reported that they found “things I can’t even describe, that were in the house, on the wall.”
Hayse went on to remind the audience that they should report any suspicious activity to the police department – because, in this case, it saved several lives.
The Chief noted that in addition to the Baker Act, the man faces several charges.
“Chief, I’d like to thank you and your officers and also the community for being ever vigilant and preventing from ever happening. Thank you,” Mayor Pro Tempore Bill Schaetlze said in conclusion.
Pro Communi Bono
St. Francis De Sales, Ora Pro Nobis!
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