Maine police: Batman 'copycat' suspect planned to shoot employer

The suspect in an unusual traffic stop Sunday night in Maine seems to have been influenced by last weekend's horrific shootings in Colorado, in the fourth arrest connected to showings of "The Dark Knight Rises," the movie at which the shootings took place.

That same evening, authorities in Los Angeles arrested a 52-year-old man attending the film after he shouted "Does anyone have a gun?" and "I should go off like in Colorado," while customers evacuated a movie complex in Pennsylvania after someone yelled "Bomb!" following fights in a bathroom and a VIP seating section. And a 26-year-old homeless man was arrested for disrupting a showing in Sierra Visa, Ariz.

As WCSH-TV reported Tuesday, Timothy Courtois was pulled over Sunday night for driving at 112 miles an hour on the Maine Turnpike, in a black Ford Mustang he allegedly bought after watching the film and planned to modify so that it could outrun authorities.

Courtois told state police he was driving to Derry, N.H., to shoot a former employer. Police found four handguns, several boxes of ammunition, and an AK-47 assault rifle inside the car, an arsenal allegedly similar to the one Aurora shooting suspect James Eagan Holmes had at the time of the massacre last Friday that left 12 people dead and 58 others wounded.

The Portland Press Heraldreported that a subsequent search of his apartment produced more boxes of ammunition and more weapons, including a fully automatic machine gun, with a scope and tripod. Save for the machine gun, all the other guns in the home were obtained legally.

Courtois also said he had attended the film with a loaded gun in his backpack. A spokesperson for the theater told WCSH they could not confirm that allegation, and that it generally does not allow people to enter with backpacks.

WCSH's report on Courtois' arrest, aired July 24, is below: