A Bullet in a GOP Office, a Psych Patient, and a Gun Loophole

The Department of Justice on Friday issued a press release touting the success of the government’s “enhanced background checks,” highlighting two instances of gun buyers turned down for having been committed to psychiatric hospitals.

But even the strengthened checks—part of a hodgepodge of regulations that vary by state—have wiggle room. Court records obtained by The Daily Beast show just that just a few months ago, an accused domestic abuser committed to a psychiatric hospital bought a handgun three days after being released over doctors’ wishes—and a bullet from that gun was subsequently fired at an office rented by the GOP.

Andrew Patrick Sprecher had for the past year been expressing violent homicidal and suicidal urges, at one point scrawling across a table in blood, “I want it to stop,” according to a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) search warrant affidavit seeking access to the 44-year-old’s cellphone.

Immediately following a six-day stay at the Milwaukee Mental Health Emergency Center (MHEC), Sprecher walked into a Wisconsin gun store, effortlessly passed the required background check, and got himself a brand-new Glock 26 9mm pistol.

A week later, a stray bullet from the gun was found lodged in the wall of a downtown Milwaukee office space being rented by the Republican National Convention, where workers are planning the GOP’s 2024 nominating confab—a key aspect of which is expected to be how to best protect the rights of “law-abiding gun owners.”

No convention staffers were present at the time of the incident, and no one with the organization was injured. The seemingly random shooting, and the backstory of the gun and gun owner involved, who obtained his weapon via what one expert called “a dangerous gap in the system,” have not been previously reported.

Sprecher’s court-appointed lawyer, Dennise Moreno, declined to comment. Sprecher, who is out on bond but whose cellphone was out of service on Friday, could not be reached. Kenneth Gales, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Milwaukee, which is prosecuting the case, said in an email, “Pursuant to the longstanding policy of the United States Department of Justice, we generally cannot comment on the matter at this time.” An ATF spokesman declined to comment on the record.

‘SOME PEOPLE DESERVE TO DIE’

When RNC employees showed up for work at their Milwaukee offices on Monday, Sept. 18, they found a bullet hole in the window and shards of glass littering the floor and one of the desks, according to the affidavit. The last people there had been a cleaning crew the previous Friday night, and the office was unoccupied throughout the weekend, the affidavit says.

The RNC office space faces west and looks out over the Milwaukee River, which meant there were only two buildings from which the shot plausibly could have been fired. One, a law office, was quickly ruled out. Investigators canvassed the other, the luxury Riverside Lofts apartment building, but none of the tenants said they heard gunfire and management said no one had access to the rooftop.

ATF and the U.S. Secret Service, which were investigating the incident alongside the Milwaukee Police Department, called in members of the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office sniper team for assistance.

The snipers “measured the height of the bullet hole in the wall, the height of the bullet hole in the window, and the distance between the two points,” according to the affidavit. “The team directed a laser from the wall, at the proper angle, and through the hole in the window. They were able to see the laser hit the Riverside Lofts building at 823 N. 2nd Street. Given the effect of the window on the path of the bullet, the sniper team narrowed down the most likely area from which the round was fired to be on the 7th, 8th, or 9th floors of the Riverside Lofts.”

In a review of the MPD’s 911 database, investigators saw that police had recently been called to the building after a neighbor said they heard a woman screaming for help outside of apartment #706 and a “male voice say they were going to shoot someone,” according to the affidavit. The tenant in 706, Andrew Sprecher, had been arrested in 2021 outside his then-girlfriend’s home with a concealed .357 magnum revolver, investigators learned.

Investigators spoke to the ex-girlfriend, who said Sprecher bought his first gun in “approximately 2017 or 2018 following a conflict with a co-worker,” the document says. She told them that Sprecher “abuses medications which were prescribed to treat bipolar and social anxiety disorders,” and regularly made “veiled threats,” including “statements about being dangerous and that he might hurt somebody.”

“Sprecher has told G.V. in the past that some people deserve to die and Sprecher has spoken of wanting to kill people,” the affidavit states. “G.V. explained Sprecher remains angry at law enforcement following his Disorderly Conduct incident in Madison and has made threats of suicide by cop.”

After refusing an attorney and representing himself in court, Sprecher pleaded guilty to one count of disorderly conduct in February 2022, Wisconsin Circuit Court records show. He was ordered to pay $181.50 in court costs within 60 days, a debt which remains outstanding, and he right away petitioned to get his gun back, according to Wisconsin court records, a request that was granted that April.

Speaking to investigators after the RNC shooting, G.V. said she was “terrified of what Sprecher was capable of doing to her since he has nothing to lose,” the affidavit continues.

‘POSED AN IMMEDIATE THREAT’

Sprecher was hospitalized after allegedly telling a suicide hotline that he was armed and ready to kill an unknown number of people before killing himself, the affidavit states police “voluntarily conveyed” Sprecher to the MHEC, it says.

“While at MHEC, Sprecher made statements about wanting to leave and that he was going to kill ‘some people’ before killing himself,” says the affidavit. “Sprecher communicated he had been told the problem with his brain was unfixable and he had no reason to live. Sprecher requested to be discharged and stated he has three guns at home… Practitioners attempted to place a ‘hold’ on Sprecher, and called MPD.”

Police wrote in their contemporaneous report that Sprecher “posed an immediate threat to himself and others in that he may shoot and kill,” according to the affidavit.

Sprecher was released from MHEC on Sept. 8, the affidavit states. It provides no further information about the circumstances under which he was allowed to check himself out.

Federal law prohibits anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective” or “committed to a mental institution” from possessing firearms, with violators subject to 10 years in prison. And Wisconsin is one of the 47 U.S. states that requires disqualifying mental health data to be submitted to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

However, there is an exception: under federal firearms regulations, “committed” does not include those who have been placed in a psychiatric facility “for observation or by voluntary admission.” As a result, Kristen Rand, government affairs director for the nonprofit Violence Policy Center, told The Daily Beast, “a voluntary commitment would not be reported to the NICS system.”

During Sprecher’s six-day stay at MHEC, his sister, identified in the affidavit as “J.E.,” went to Sprecher’s apartment and removed two loaded revolvers, she told MPD detectives.

“J.E. related Sprecher came back from the mental hospital in worse shape than before he went in,” the affidavit says. “J.E. described how Sprecher always talks about wanting to kill an ex-girlfriend. J.E. told investigators she believed he would kill this ex-girlfriend and act on his impulses.”

Red flags had been flying everywhere, according to the affidavit. In August, Sprecher’s sister called 911 to say he had sent her a text about possibly carrying out a mass shooting at an office where he had worked. Roughly two weeks later, suicide hotline employees contacted police after Sprecher said he was “suicidal and homicidal,” had a gun, and didn’t “feel safe to be alone or around people.”

Following his release from MHEC, Sprecher—who in 2019 pleaded no contest to failure to comply with established shooting range rules, texted his sister to say he “bought a fucking Glock” after she took away his guns, the affidavit states.

“I don’t know what to say, I appreciate your help, at this point I am beyond saving,” he wrote.

According to a police records check, the affidavit says Sprecher on Sept. 10 “initiated the purchase of a Glock pistol (Model 26, 9mm, bearing serial no. ADYU734) from Brew City Shooter’s Supply, a federally licensed firearms (FFL) dealer, located at 2339 S. 43rd Street in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.”

He filled out ATF Form 4473, a questionnaire all prospective gun buyers are required to complete, the affidavit states. But the on-the-spot background check came back “delayed,” meaning the “results were inconclusive and more time was needed before a determination could be made,” according to the affidavit, which does not explain the hold-up. However, the next day, the “results of the background check resulted in a ‘proceed,’” and the sale was completed.

According to the affidavit, investigators learned Sprecher had legally purchased another handgun at Brew City Shooter’s Supply over the summer. On July 26, Sprecher bought a Beretta Cheetah .380, a transaction which also yielded a “delayed” response on the background check. But as with the Glock, Sprecher’s application was quickly approved, and he completed the purchase on July 30, the affidavit states. (Wisconsin maintains its own background check system, separate from NICS, using both state and federal records, an ATF source told The Daily Beast.)

Tanya Schardt, senior counsel and director of state and federal policy at Brady, formerly known as the Brady Center Against Gun Violence, said it’s important not to erect barriers that might discourage people in crisis from voluntarily checking themselves in for mental health treatment. If they know it may later impact their gun rights, they may not seek help, she said.

“Having said that, there are still other ways to ensure that those who shouldn’t have firearms, don’t get firearms,” Schardt told The Daily Beast.

One would be for medical staff to change the existing voluntary commitment to an involuntary one, Schardt said. Another would be to use existing state-level extreme risk protection orders, or so-called red flag laws. Fewer than half of all U.S. states have some form of red flag law, under which authorities can issue an order ensuring that people deemed a danger to themselves or others can’t “just go and buy firearms,” according to Schardt.

“Wisconsin does not have an extreme risk protection law, which is unfortunate,” Schardt said. “That is a really effective tool, and this is a perfect example of when that could have been used.”

Attorney Stephanie Sherman, who filed the first federal lawsuit on behalf of three families whose children survived the May 2022 Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting, said “institutions rarely take steps to involuntarily commit someone,” as with the Sprecher case.

“When people are in institutions for self-harm, or being a danger to others, they can get released once they report to the doctors that they no longer feel they are a threat to themselves or anyone else,” Sherman told The Daily Beast. “…So the person may still be a danger to others, but report that they’re not so they can get out. And in those instances, that is a dangerous gap in the system.”

‘BOUGHT A FUCKING GLOCK’

The feds descended on Sprecher’s apartment in mid-October, looking to tie him to the RNC shooting. While searching his home, agents found the Glock 26, the Beretta, and a spent 9mm shell casing, along with “other weapons such as a makeshift morning star bat, an axe and a message seemingly written in blood atop a table that said, ‘I want it to stop,’” according to the affidavit. Agents also recovered drug paraphernalia and three ounces of marijuana, it says.

Sprecher said the weed was for his own personal use, and while he acknowledged the presence of professional-looking hydroponic growing equipment in the apartment, he told agents he was no longer in that business, the affidavit states. Agents pointed out that ATF Form 4473 asks gun purchasers if they use “any controlled substance,” including cannabis, and that lying on the form is a federal felony. Sprecher, on the forms he filled out for both the Glock and the Beretta, answered “no” each time, according to the affidavit.

Sprecher, at this point, told agents he did not want to answer any further questions.

The bullet fragment found in the RNC office wall was analyzed by technicians at the ATF forensic lab, who “confirmed [it] was fired from Sprecher’s Glock pistol,” the affidavit states. The ATF’s National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN) system connected the spent shell casing found in Sprecher’s apartment to the same Glock; a “microscopic examination” will fully confirm the results, it says.

Sprecher was arrested Nov. 9 and charged with one federal count of being an unlawful drug user in possession of a firearm, which carries up to a decade in prison, and one count of providing false information to a federally licensed firearms dealer, which also carries a 10-year penalty. On Jan. 4, Moreno, Sprecher’s lawyer, moved for a 45-day extension “so that the parties can continue to discuss the possibility of resolution of this case prior to indictment,” according to court records.

Sprecher remains on home detention at his sister’s residence, with GPS monitoring, pending his next court appearance on Feb. 22.