Posted on 05/12/2011 12:26:59 PM PDT by UB355
More than 100 pages of public records released Thursday reveal again how high emotion, bad judgment and anti-social media combined in February to generate a nationwide investigation of threats against Gov. Scott Walker and lawmakers on both sides of his budget-repair bill.
Emails, Twitter streams, Facebook and Craigslist postings, phone calls and even a few notes sent by U.S. mail ranged from overt threats of violence to promises of political retaliation to benign-sounding requests for investigations of lawmakers' actions. A surprising number of even the most vile messages came from readily-identifiable senders.
The vast majority of about 90 matters referred to the state authorities were determined to present "no criminal nexus or viable threat," but about a dozen remain open as Department of Criminal Investigation cases, according to Assistant Attorney General Kevin Potter.
The records - a spreadsheet of referrals and copies of suspect communications, both written and oral - were released in response to a public records request from news media in the wake of the protracted budget-repair bill showdown that began in February.
Dozens of emails suggest Walker or legislators should be shot, or hanged, or should watch their backs, look over their shoulders or resign. One man tweeted that he prayed an anvil would fall from the sky onto Walker.
FBI agents from Maine to California to Florida also got involved, the records show. A suspect in Maine was arrested after sending letters to that state's Republican U.S. senators suggesting Walker should be killed and that all Republican governors resign.
A Burbank, Calif., resident who sent a long email offering a $50,000 bounty for Walker was interviewed by federal agents who determined he was mentally challenged and not a true threat.
Police in Nebraska tracked down a man who posted to a Wisconsin man's Facebook page that he expected the shooting to start soon and that he would be ready to inflict nonlethal shots so others could hear screams. He told officers he got "carried away," didn't intend to harm anyone and has never been to Wisconsin.
Only one person has been charged so far with making threats, Katherine R. Windels, 26, of Cross Plains.
One email originally characterized as a threat to the governor's mansion was someone suggesting protesters form a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam in the blocks around the residence. The unidentified writer thought it would be a "smart, rather whimsical form of protest."
A Stevens Point man called the State Police after he heard his accountant, who he knew is married to a teacher, remark that if Walker didn't stop attacking teachers unions he'd be assassinated. An agent interviewed the accountant and determined there was no threat.
An email from a man who said he was elderly and retired urged Sen. Julie Lassa (D-Stevens Point) to go back to work, "or we the people will not pay our taxes."
It also read, "Cowards die a thousand times, the valiant taste of death only once."
Civil war is upon us.
they'll just label all democrats as mentally challenged now so they can continue to threaten violence unabated.
Since when is “aw just kidding” a defense for making documented death threats?
Wisconsin: Woman charged with email threats
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2697833/posts
“Please put your things in order because you will be killed and your familes will also be killed due to your actions in the last 8 weeks.”
I’m guessing she’s out on $50 bail.
She wasn’t even charged bail — signature bond only.
Nice...
one poster said had this been a teaparty person, the media would have made her more famous than The Beatles within hours.
Isn't that just swell...
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