WILMINGTON, DE — Delaware State Police reported arresting a 37-year-old Wilmington man Sunday evening after he allegedly displayed a handgun and threatened to kill four people at a shopping center.
Troopers responded at approximately 5:30 p.m. Sept. 6 to the Chestnut Run Shopping Center, 1714 Faulkland Road, after receiving a report that a man had threatened multiple people with a handgun, according to state police.
Police said the suspect had left the shopping center and headed toward a nearby neighborhood before troopers arrived.
Troopers subsequently located Bruce Thorngate IV, 37, walking in the Greenville on 141 community, according to police. State police reported that Thorngate matched the description provided by witnesses and that a loaded handgun was recovered from his waistband during a search.
Thorngate was taken into custody without incident, police reported.
According to the preliminary investigation, Thorngate had been standing near a store at the shopping center when he noticed four people. Police allege that, for reasons investigators had not determined, Thorngate lifted his shirt to display a handgun and threatened to kill them.
None of the four people was injured, according to state police.
Investigators also determined that Thorngate had a prior felony conviction that prohibited him from possessing or carrying a firearm, police said.
Thorngate was charged with felony possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, felony possession of a firearm by a person prohibited with a prior violent crime, felony carrying a concealed deadly weapon, four felony counts of aggravated menacing, and four counts of terroristic threatening, according to state police.
Following his arraignment in Justice of the Peace Court, Thorngate was committed to the Delaware Department of Correction after failing to post $64,000 cash bail, police reported.
All suspects, arrestees, and defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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