The two men were just walking around with a short length of rope? And a bottle of bleach? At 2AM? In extremely cold weather? Because — you know — they might just bump into someone they could lynch.
First they sent him a threatening letter.
Then they were tracking him on social media to determine when he would be in Chicago.
Then I guess they hung out around his apartment hoping he would come out while no one else was around, hopefully late at night, so they could attack him.