Police Ramp Up Scrutiny of Online Threats
A number of people have been arrested in recent weeks for online threats against police, in what appears to be a crackdown by officials after the killings of officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, La. But whether the charges will turn into criminal cases, let alone convictions, is murky, as they raise thorny free-speech issues in a largely unsettled area of the law.
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Last week, police in Buffalo, N.Y., arrested Arthur Jordan, who was accused of sharing a Facebook post that included emojis of a police officer with a revolver pointed at the officer’s head, which investigators believed to be directed at a specific officer. The criminal complaint says Mr. Jordan also allegedly posted on Facebook, “Let’s Start Killin Police Lets See How Dey Like It.” Mr. Jordan was arrested on state charges, including criminal possession of a weapon, and later was charged by federal authorities with transmitting a communication across state lines that threatened to injure police officers. A lawyer for Mr. Jordan declined to comment.
In Racine, Wis., police were monitoring social media when they found a July 7 Facebook post that said: “I encourage every white Officer to kiss their love ones good-bye…It’s time to start going into their homes and killing their families,” according to the criminal complaint. Police traced the comments to Byron Cowan, a local resident, and arrested him on state charges that include soliciting threats to a law enforcement officer, which carries a sentence of up to 11 years in prison. At his bail hearing last week, a public defender argued Mr. Cowan made the statements in the heat of the moment and they weren’t credible threats.
Landing convictions in such cases won’t be easy. Online rants about police are generally protected by the First Amendment’s free-speech guarantee. But there are exceptions, such as when a posting is found to be a “true threat”—which often means one directed at a specific person or group with the intent of injuring or killing, experts say.
Even then, there is debate over how much the speaker’s intent matters, or whether the listener’s perception of the threat should carry more weight. Context also matters, and that can be hard to determine from a terse online post. But in the wake of the shootings in Dallas and Baton Rouge, which killed a total of eight officers, judges might be more willing to view such threats as serious, and therefore criminal, some experts say.
Still, many police departments are treading softly, grappling with the right balance between free speech and officer safety.
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/police-ramp-up-scrutiny-of-online-threats-1468974410
