Armstead (Annapolis Police Department)

A week after prosecutors in Maryland charged a Crofton man with threatening to shoot up his workplace after referring to himself as “a joker,” authorities have arrested a Glen Burnie resident for making similar threats.

James Armstead, 37, was arrested today after calling up a child support enforcement office and threatening a “Batman-style” massacre, Annapolis Police said. Armstead’s threat was taken as an obvious reference to last month’s midnight shooting spree at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, Colo.

Authorities did not find an AK-47 or any other firearm at Armstead’s home, but police said that investigators found evidence he was trying to figure out how to obtain an AK-47.

Armstead has been charged with threatening to injure a state official and with two counts of telephone misuse and is being held on $60,000 bail.

Last week, Neil Prescott, a 28-year-old Pitney Bowes employee, was charged with misdemeanor telephone misuse after being arrested for allegedly plotting a rampage at his office. Like Aurora shooting suspect James Holmes, Prescott referred to himself as a “joker,” in an apparent reference to the Batman villain of the same name.