Photo: Unsplash / Nick Rickert
A release from the Summit County Sheriff’s office reveals law enforcement thwarted a mass shooting planned for a “ski resort” in Breckenridge on January 7, 2026. The arrest of Nathaniel Zabik, 44, came after two individuals reported receiving messages on social media that he wanted to kill others and himself. One of the individuals who came forward to police shared screenshots of private Facebook messages sent just hours before Zabik’s plan to carry out the shooting.
A January 7 report from the sheriff’s office shows that deputies arrived at Zabik’s home within 15 minutes of the report and established a perimeter while they investigated further. Detectives were reviewing those electronic messages at the same time and established probable cause along with a timeline for the planned shooting. Zabik then left his home a little less than two hours later carrying a backpack and three trash bags “with unknown items.” Deputies pulled him over once he left his home and passed them. The affidavit didn’t clarify whether or not deputies found weapons in Zabik’s possession at the time that they’d pulled him over, but his departure aligned with the timing of one of his Facebook messages in which he stated he had “two hours left.”
Zabik reportedly told police once he was detained that, “One of the ways I reach out for help is just saying things to get attention.”
His threatening messages included multiple mentions to “the resort” and Breckenridge, saying he wanted to die and “it’s real lives that will be taken, and I’m so excited and proud to do it.”
The affidavit also mentions a reference by Zabik to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in which 26 people were killed.
“No one will ever forget, make Sandy Hook which was fake anyway look like a vacation,” he said. Other messages referenced that because there are “no cops at the resort” he would be able to “kill so many ppl” before anybody could stop him. “I will have the record for most deaths by a single individual and I have it all planned out,” Zabik reportedly wrote.
Zabik’s messages also referenced politics. Although reports don’t establish political affiliation as his motive, it does appear that it played into who Zabik believed he was targeting. He wrote that President Donald Trump is “the only good person” and that “There all liberals here, they deserve to die anyway.” Other messages stated Zabik hated “life, everything and everyone in it” and that he planned to “take revenge on everyone I possibly can.”
