Missouri Man's 'Social Experiment' Packing Guns, Wearing Body Armor, Results In Terror At Walmart

Dmitriy Andrechenko (mug shot - Greene County Sheriff's office)

Just days after two mass shootings that left at least 31 dead and 53 more injured, Dmitriy Andreychenko decided he wanted to try a 'social experiment' at his local Walmart in Missouri.

According to the Washington Post, his wife told him it was a bad idea. His sister reminded him that the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, less than a week earlier had occured at a Walmart.

But Andreychenko, 20-years-old, decided to move forward with his plan.

So, with a military-style rifle strapped to his back, a semiautomatic handgun on his hip, and over 100 rounds of ammunition, he headed into his local Walmart clad in body armor this past Thursday.

He began walking around the store with his cell phone held in front of him recording the store's customers.

Anyone reading this think folks might panic at the sight of all this after a maniac had just killed 22 people at a Walmart?

The manager of the store told an employee to pull the fire alarm to get people out of the store. Andreychenko headed for a side exit but was apparently stopped by a former member of the military who held him at gunpoint until police arrived.

Andreychenko told police he wanted to see if his 2nd Amendment rights "would be honored" in a public place. He told investigators he didn't anticipate the customers' reactions.

“This is Missouri,” he reportedly told investigators. “I understand if we were somewhere else like New York or California, people would freak out.”

I refer you back to the top of this story where his wife and sister tried to tell him just that.

Andreychenko has been charged with making a terrorist threat, saying he "recklessly disregarded the risk of causing a building evacuation by knowingly sowing fear in the wake of the El Paso mass shooting at the same retail chain," according to the Washington Post.

Note - Missouri is an open-carry state. Not only that, but since 2017, people in the Show Me state have been allowed to carry concealed weapons without a permit in most locations.

Those laws, however, don't entitle individuals to pull the gun equivalent of raising a false fire alarm in a crowded theater.

“Missouri protects the right of people to open carry a firearm, but that does not allow an individual to act in a reckless and criminal manner endangering other citizens,” Greene County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Patterson said in a statement.

Andreychenko’s second-degree felony charge carries up to four years’ imprisonment and a fine of as much as $10,000. He is being held on $10,000 bond with the stipulation that he may not possess a firearm, according to the prosecutor.

The 20-year-old social experimenter didn't shoot anyone, but a police officer and another driver were seriously injured in a traffic accident as the officer was heading to the Walmart with lights and sirens on. Both the officer and driver had to be taken to the emergency room after suffering "severe injuries."

On top of possible jail time, Andreychenko is now reportedly banned from Walmart stores.

“This was a reckless act designed to scare people, disrupt our business and it put our associates and customers at risk,” the company said in a statement. “We applaud the quick actions of our associates to evacuate customers from our store, and we’re thankful no one was injured.”

Speaking to CNN, Springfield Police Lt. Mike Lucas said Andreychenko “certainly had...the potential to harm people.”

“His intent was not to cause peace or comfort to anybody that was in the business,” Lucas said. “In fact, he’s lucky to be alive still, to be honest.”

Many folks thought back to November 2014 when 12-year-old Tamir Rice, an African-American boy in Cleveland, Ohio, was shot and killed by police was he was playing in a park with a toy gun.

And then there's the shooting death of John Crawford in Ohio who was shot by police for holding a pellet/BB gun at a Walmart store.

The black folks are shot dead, the 20-year-old white guy packing all kinds of heat and in body armor is taken into custody without any harm.

America is a place where a white man can walk into a Missouri Walmart with body armor, a loaded rifle and 100 rounds of ammo to scare the shit out of people and he gets arrested without a scratch on him, but a 12-year-old black child was shot and killed for playing with a toy.

— Adam Best (@adamcbest) August 9, 2019

An armed white man with body armor walks into a Walmart in Springfield, Missouri. No shots were fired.

An unarmed black man named John Crawford walks into a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio, near Dayton, and looks at a BB gun. Police killed him on the spot.https://t.co/kDiJppFk5f pic.twitter.com/BZsfRiwDBy

— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) August 9, 2019

“Aren’t you glad the firefighter had a gun?”

Yes, I am glad the FIREFIGHTER who is TRAINED to deal with situations of mass panic had a gun. #Missouri #Walmart

— Jennifer Wilczynski (@JenWilcz) August 9, 2019