Are copycats of infamous people a real danger? ......................... Authorities have arrested a Maryland man they say referred to himself as "a joker" and threatened to carry out a shooting at his workplace

Police arrested 28-year-old Neil Prescott of Crofton, Md., after he allegedly called his employer and threatened to "shoot the place up," a source close to the investigation told Fox News.

Authorities say the suspect called himself "a joker" before his arrest Thursday. Officials say they believe the threat could have been carried out as a copycat of the shooting massacre one week ago in Aurora, Colo., in which 12 people were killed and 58 injured during a midnight viewing of the new Batman film "The Dark Knight Rises."

"I am a joker. I'm gonna load my guns and blow everybody up," the man told his supervisor in a phone conversation earlier this week, officials said.

The suspect was also wearing a T-shirt that said, "Guns don't kill people. I do," when taken into custody, according to authorities.

During a press conference Friday afternoon, authorities referred to the case as a "thwarted terror threat" and called it "significant."

"We can't measure what we prevented here," Prince George's County Police Chief Mark Magaw told reporters Friday. "We averted a significant...and violent episode."