Tinder Date Arrested After Police Find Multiple Illegal Firearms, Bomb-Making Materials In Car

Framingham, MA – Officers from multiple police agencies responded after a woman in Framingham called police on Sunday night and reported that her Tinder date was armed.

The incident occurred just before 9 p.m. on Sept. 26 at a home located near the intersection of Arlington and Waushakum streets, the Framingham Source reported.

Court documents said that Tinder date was coming to an end and when 25-year-old David Kessler “flashed a firearm” inside his vehicle as the two sat parked in Kessler’s car in the woman’s neighborhood.

The woman went into her house, locked the door, and called police about the gun, according to the Framingham Source.

Officers responded to the scene and found Kessler out of his car and walking down the street carrying a “tan duffle bag.”

The incident report said Kessler was carrying a switchblade and “a torch, an oil rig, and several miscellaneous items used to contain marijuana oils,” the Framingham Source reported.

Kessler told police that he “came to Framingham to take a girl…. out on a second date, that he met on a dating app identified as Tinder.”

He told officers that they went to dinner at a sushi restaurant and then returned to his date’s house.

Kessler told officers that his date said she was going into the house and when he tried to follow her in after he grabbed a few things, she had locked the door.

He told officers that he had called his date multiple times to find out “why she locked the door” but the woman didn’t answer, the Framingham Source reported.

That’s when officers arrived on the scene and found Kessler walking down the street.

Officers asked Kessler if he had any firearms in his vehicle and if he had a license to carry a gun, the Framingham Source reported.

The police report said Kessler told officers “I do not wish to talk.”

Officers searched Kessler’s green Buick and found a “loaded Glock 21 .45, a loaded Glock 19 .9mm, and ammunition” in the vehicle’s glove compartment, the Framingham Source reported.

The incident report said that in addition to the guns and ammunition, officers found other items that raise concern and caused them to call in the Massachusetts State Police bomb squad to investigate.

The report said a Framingham police sergeant noticed an “open blue backpack on the rear passenger seat” that contained “a spool of fuse cord commonly used for fireworks or explosive devices,” the Framingham Source reported.

In a “second open compartment of the bag, I observed a steel pipe with a cap thread on one end,” the sergeant wrote in the police report.

Police evacuated a dozen homes around the area where Kessler’s Buick was parked until the bomb squad cleared the area and determined there were no explosive devices inside the vehicle, the Framingham Source reported.

But state police did find “multiple spools of hobby cord, as well as possible black powder, both of which are used in the manufacturing of homemade explosive devices” inside Kessler’s vehicle as well as additional firearms.

Court documents said the state troopers also found a “tan Glock 17 handgun with a folding brace and a red dot sight was located in a camouflage backpack in the rare seat and an unknown make and model rifle was located in a plastic case in the trunk.”

Kessler was arrested and charged with two counts of possession of a firearm without a license, eight counts of possession of a large capacity feeding device, four counts of carrying a loaded firearm, and improper storage of a firearm, the Framingham Source reported.

A spokesperson from the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office said Kessler was arraigned on Sept. 27.

Judge Matthew McGrath found the defendant dangerous and ordered him held on $5,000 cash bail, according to the district attorney’s office.

McGrath ordered that Kessler’s conditions for release include wearing “a GPS monitoring device with a curfew from 6 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. with permit to work, have no recreational use of the Internet, stay away and have no contact with the witness, have no alcohol or drugs, have no possession of any dangerous weapons, firearms or explosive devices, and check in daily with the probation department,” the Framingham Source reported.

Kessler is schedule to appear in court again on Oct. 22.