Heavily Armed Michigan Man Arrested After Death Threats To Jewish Officials
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel
Antisemitic violence has been on the rise in the U.S. since 2021. The latest incident comes out of Michigan, where a man allegedly tweeted a threat to kill Jewish members of the state government. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel claims to be one of his targets.
According to reporting by CNN, on February 17, the FBI National Threat Operations Center notified the Detroit FBI office about a Twitter user with the handle @tempered_reason, who tweeted that he was “heading back to Michigan now threatening to carry out the punishment of death to anyone that is Jewish in the Michigan govt if they don’t leave, or confess.” The user added that any attempts to “subdue” him would “be met with deadly force in self-defense.”
The man, identified as Jack Eugene Carpenter III, has an arrest record and a protection order against him. He had three 9mm handguns registered to his name, according to a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, CNN reports. One of the guns was “stolen” from a past partner.
Nessel tweeted Thursday morning that she was one of Carpenter’s targets.
“The FBI has confirmed I was a target of the heavily armed defendant in this matter. It is my sincere hope that the federal authorities take this offense just as seriously as my Hate Crimes & Domestic Terrorism Unit takes plots to murder elected officials.”
\u201cThe FBI has confirmed I was a target of the heavily armed defendant in this matter. It is my sincere hope that the federal authorities take this offense just as seriously as my Hate Crimes &\nDomestic Terrorism Unit takes plots to murder elected officials. https://t.co/RsUY5xMrxx\u201d— Dana Nessel (@Dana Nessel) 1677756838
According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Carpenter was a former employee of the University of Michigan. He claimed on Twitter that he “was fired for refusing to take experimental medication.” It is assumed he’s referring to the COVID-19 vaccine.
Carpenter’s Twitter feed was rife with conspiratorial rants.
He claimed that if he were arrested, he would “get the lawyer removed due to conflict of interest because they are Jewish.” He mentions by name Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Anthony Fauci, Chris Cuomo, and multiple University of Michigan personnel. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that the only Jewish figure he mentions is Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla.
Carpenter additionally claimed President Joe Biden was not democratically elected and that he would give “a brief reprieve to any Zionist Christian or Zionist Jew” who wanted “to return to the country to which you actually owe allegiance.”
Michigan has become a home base for violent and extremist groups of late, including the group put on trial for attempting to kidnap Gov. Whitmer, a Democrat. The head of that group was sentenced to 19 years in prison.
Florida is currently a bastion of antisemitism.
Just last week, a group of neo-Nazis from the Goyim Defense League (GDL) gathered outside of the Chabad of South Orlando and, for hours, harassed members of the Chabad as they drove onto the property, WESH in Orlando reports.
"Leave our country, go back to Israel. You know, where you bomb Palestinian kids?" a GDL protester can be heard screaming in a video widely posted to social media. The Jerusalem Post reports that the person screaming was GDL founder Jon Minadeo.
\u201c\u201cLeave our country go back to Israel\u201d\n\u201cHeil hitler\u201d \u201csir do you think you should be put in an oven\u201d \n\nThese \u201cGDL\u201d nazi animals have been terrorizing & targeting Jews & Jewish communities with impunity \n\nPolice are refrained from doing anything. This needs to be stopped\u201d— Baruch Sandhaus (@Baruch Sandhaus) 1677082884
"It was very disturbing. People were traumatized by it," Rabbi Yosef Konikov said. "They were speaking to every individual that was entering and exiting the property. And saying things that you would expect. You know how Nazis in World War II spoke when they were talking to Jews in that era. That spoke with hatred and venom in their eyes."
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
