Law Enforcement Advice?

JT, I have a screenshot of the second one… in case nobody else got it.

Generally you can’t really take spur of the moment threats like that seriously. It’s the internet; people say dumb shit that shows them to be dumb – it’s the long-term stalkers who are increasingly threatening that are the dangerous ones (and even they are rarely dangerous) I wouldn’t recommend taking this to law enforcement unless the same person keeps upping the ante.

Pointing out to them that threatening people is both illegal and stupid (because once it’s on the internet, it never goes away and will be sitting there for future employers) ought to calm them down, though doubtless you’ll get some pro-forma huffery.

I tried… hoping it would be on google’s cached copy of his page… it wasn’t.
I don’t know how much they can do with the curb stomp tweet that I got a screenshot of.

It won’t be in the wayback machine.

Law enforcement, reasonably, can’t get involved in every single “internet asshole” situation; first off they’d be too busy and secondly they’d have to arrest most of the internet. Remember how long it took – including increasingly over-the-top behavior – to get the cops to take a look at Markuze?

Also, the above doesn’t really read as a threat to me. It reads as someone really hoping another person gets hurt, but not offering to do it themselves. Secondly, the fact that they deleted their account shows that they’re cowards. Generally cowards don’t show up to physically confront someone. When it comes to internet threats the red flags should only start to wave if the offender is showing persistent focus on the target, appears to be planning an attack, is ratcheting up their abuse, etc. Almost always you want to judge based on the level of effort that the attacker is putting into it. I.e.: if they post stupid twitter-grams, that’s one thing. If they post photoshopped pictures of you with crosshairs, that’s another. If they start mailing you stuff or sending photos that they took from the street outside your house – then, that’s real bad.

That is the “moralizing force of faith” at work.

Death threats are federal crimes, felonies.

There are a lot of people doing multi-year sentences for making death threats over interstate means of communication.

To be sure, the FBI tends to go after those threatening politicians for the obvious reason.

I’m not “law enforcement.” I am, however, a former prosecutor, current criminal defense attorney, and First Amendment practitioner.

There’s two different questions here: (1) whether the tweets were a crime, and (2) what to do about them.

As to (1), whether they were a crime, the test is [probably - long boring exceptions left out for now] — whether they represented a “true threat,” meaning a threat intended to be taken as a genuine expression of intent to do imminent physical harm harm (or maybe the standard is whether a reasonable person would take it that way, not whether it was intended that way. It may be both. It depends on your jurisdiction, sometimes. Isn’t law majestic?]

So, do they qualify? Generally the archetypical illegal threat is “I will kill you tonight”; anything conditional, hypothetical, aspirational, etc. is less likely to qualify. I think these are close to that line. I think you can make a colorable argument either way.

But (2) — should you report it. Strong a defender of the First Amendment as I am — and as contemptuous of bullshit “bullying” and “harassment” laws as I am — I think so. Let the cops decide if it is close enough to the line to investigate. Cops can investigate things and talk to people even if they don’t have probable cause yet, so long as they don’t conduct any actions implicating the Fourth Amendment.

Just my few cents.

I believe the comment with her address has been removed now, but of course there is no knowing who might have seen it when it was still up.

have their account cancelled.

I generally like to link to comments like that with the commenter’s real name if possible. Then point out that their threat may wind up in search engines for future prospective employers’ HR departments to find. Usually they’ll jump through their own assholes trying to delete their comment after that. If not then, years later.

If you want an example of how I roll when threatened over the internet, you can google for “Euan Donegan” and follow the link.

It’s amazing how people act and why they will post when they don’t realize it can be tracked even if they go back and delete their accounts.

We all want to support and protect Jessica, but please don’t stoop to the level of these people when you reply to any of them. We’re seeing Christian teachings at work in full force today, so much for love they neighbor!

Everyone make sure to screenshot anything you see that is questionable and get them to JT or Jessica.

I reported the infamous “girl with a book” thread to the FBI. No shit. In that case, threats of rape were made to a (according to the FBI) minor girl… which is CLEARLY illegal, unless you lack a brain.

By that time, posters had already tried scrubbing their comments from the thread as if they can’t be tracked down. Having worked for an ISP in their TOS department, I can tell you that the FBI does not look kindly upon that sort of thing…

But this is a different case. Certainly, if the girl is under 16 and the comments made are sexual in nature, they can be bagged by the FBI. No sweat.

Otherwise, I think other posters have explained the legality of things much better than I ever could.

Someone, anyone willing to try to demonstrate that these kind of statements are made as often by us angry non-theists? Even remotely closely as often, per capita?

Document it. There’s a good chance this shit will keep happening and law enforcement will be looking for reasons not to take you seriously (your safety isn’t their concern. Being able to get a conviction is). If you do start to feel intimidated or unsafe it’ll be harder for them to ignore it.

I’m going to have to disagree John, she very well should be replying to those threats. It’s been gone over multiple times on the topics of women and misogynistic trolling, but the general consensus is that “don’t feed the trolls” is a shitty idea. It just makes them feel like they’re getting away with it.

William Hamby did a piece on this for the Atlanta Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/atheism-in-atlanta/christians-bombard-teen-activist-with-hate-and-abuse

In it, he provides a link to this page which has screenshots (screenshots or it didn’t happen!) of the offending tweets:

http://jesusfetusfajitafishsticks.blogspot.com/2012/01/ahlquist-screenshots-if-by-christian.html

One girl says she’s in Ahlquist’s biology class and is going to throw things at her. Others (who are apparently familiar with he through school) say that she deserves to be beaten up, and it’s surprising that she hasn’t been already. One says that if he wasn’t over 18, he’d go beat her up. (Nice excuse to be a coward, but nevertheless a threat.)

The list goes on and on. The threats aren’t just confined to random Joe Schmoe Twitter accounts but seem to extend to people who know her personally and wish her physical harm. I’d say that constitutes at least law enforcement getting involved.

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