OAN Deven Berryhill UPDATED 6:30 PM PT – Thursday, March 2, 2023
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a tweet that she was targeted by a heavily armed man for being a Jewish member of the Michigan state government on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Missouri resident Jack Carpenter III tweeted threats that he was coming to kill anyone who was Jewish in the Michigan state legislature.
“I’m heading back to Michigan now threatening to carry out the punishment of death to anyone that is Jewish in the Michigan government if they don’t leave, or confess, and now that kind of problem,” Carpenter tweeted. “[They would] be met with deadly force in self-defense.”
Michigan AG says she was among those targeted in threat to kill #Jewish members of state government. #Michigan man threatened on social media to kill Jews of the Michigan government, FBI said. State Attorney General Dana Nessel says she was among those targeted.#Antisemitismpic.twitter.com/m4tw9Q0Gzr
— Center Against Anti-Semitism (@CTRAntisemitism) March 2, 2023
Carpenter tweeted the anti-Semitic comments from Texas where he announced that he would soon be returning to Michigan to carry out his threats. According to sources, the state has a number of elected officials of Jewish descent including Attorney General Dana Nessel, Representative Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), among a handful of others.
“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,” Nessel said in a tweet.
The FBI later reported that they discovered Carpenter was also being investigated for stealing a firearm in 2022. The agents said that Carpenter had been arrested on assault charges and had stolen a handgun from his girlfriend. His mother told FBI agents that he was “in possession of several firearms, including three handguns, a 12-gauge shotgun, and a military-style hunting rifle.”
According to local reports, Carpenter is being detained in a Detroit federal court without bail. If convicted, Carpenter could face up to five years in federal prison for “transmitting an interstate threat.”
