SEGUIN, TX (KSAT/CNN) - A 33-year-old wearing tactical-style clothing and carrying a loaded gun was arrested while on his way to a church after a bizarre encounter with a waitress, who decided to call police.
Tony Dwayne Albert II faces charges of possession of marijuana and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He is being held on $100,000 bail.
Police arrested Albert Sunday morning after waitress Brianna Jimenez reported seeing a man with a gun at her family’s Mexican restaurant, Las Mananitas, in Seguin, TX.
Jimenez says she wasn’t initially alarmed when Albert entered the restaurant and went straight to the restroom. But once he left the bathroom, he engaged her in a conversation that Jimenez says “weirded [her] out.”
Albert asked Jimenez where the nearest church was, so thinking he was looking for a church to attend, the waitress pointed out the Door Christian Fellowship Church next door.
"He was like, 'I've been to that church many years ago,'" Jimenez said. "I just said, 'Oh, OK,' and then he was like, 'Do you know where the other Baptist church is at?'"
Jimenez says Albert repeatedly asked her if she could take him to the other church, even after she explained that she couldn't because she was working. She and her mother provided the suspect with directions instead.
But when Albert turned to leave, Jimenez says she saw that he had a gun.
“He's gripping it. He has his finger on the trigger," she said. “I was just like, ‘Oh no.’”
The waitress says she knew she had to call the police.
“He brought up a church, so with what’s going on in society and he had a freaking gun, it just clicked,” she said.
Police later arrested Albert, who was armed with a handgun and extra ammunition, along the highway. They have not reported that he made it to a church.
The suspect stated he had to fulfill a prophecy at an unknown church, according to authorities.
Police say it’s unclear what Albert’s intentions were and whether he intended to carry out a shooting, but they are, nevertheless, praising Jimenez for reporting her encounter.
"Now that I think about it, he could've went to any church – a lot of people leaving in body bags," Jimenez said. "That kind of hurts me, like, what if?”
Albert reportedly thought he was in a different city to the one he was actually in. Police say officials within that city have been notified but did not name it, due to the ongoing investigation.
Officials with the Texas Rangers, FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are assisting in the investigation.
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