Online Threat to Kill Obama Leads to Arrest

[kpete]

Source: Wired

Online Threat to Kill Obama Leads to Arrest
By Kevin Poulsen EmailJanuary 09, 2009 | 4:18:51 PMCategories: Threats

Obama_mail_500px A Southern California man was charged Thursday with threatening a presidential candidate, for posting a racist note to a Yahoo message board in October expressing displeasure over Barack Obama's candidacy, and predicting "he will have a 50 cal in the head soon."

Walter Edward Bagdasarian, 47, was found with an arsenal of six weapons when Secret Service agents raided his La Mesa home in November, according to court records (.pdf). He had three handguns and three rifles, including a 30.06 with a telescopic sight and a Remington .50 caliber muzzle-loading rifle.

Bagdasarian is not accused of actually plotting against Obama, and he was released last month on a $100,000 real estate bond. Bagdasarian's attorney did not return a phone call Friday.

The post in question showed up on a Yahoo Finance board on Oct. 22, about two weeks before the election, under the handle "californiaradial." The message was titled "Shoot the nig."

Read more: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/threat.html

[w4rma]

1. Good. (nt)

[Hydra]

2. Dumbass

But those seem to grow on trees.

"There are two types of Republicans- Billionaires and Suckers"

[Taverner]

3. WTF is wrong with some people?

[JuniperLea]

4. Good!

Not long ago a DUer found a threatening post on another board, and asked if they should report it.

Yes. And here you go...

[lurky]

5. User name "californiaradial"? Did he mean to say "radical"?

BTW, glad they got him.

[ejpoeta]

6. maybe he's a california radial ...tire. ?? LOL!

[hootinholler]

26. He's hoping he's a runflat.

-Hoot

[rosesaylavee]

23. Typical moran. Can't sp3ll.

[oldnslo]

7. Grease him now, or he'll be back.

[kayakjohnny]

8. Glad they got him. Now it's time to throw a very highly publicized book at him.

[IndianaGreen]

22. I am more disturbed about the hostile language one hears on RW media

from the likes of Coulter, Limbaugh, and others that feed the paranoia of people like Bagdasarian.

I agree with you, they should throw a well publicized book at him to discourage other like-minded individuals.

[juno jones]

9. He abbrieviated the 'n' word because

He couldn't remember if it had one or two 'g's' and he didn't want to appear stupid.

[Jefferson23]

10. I feel bad for Obama's children that may hear about all these fucking

lunatics out there.Excellent he was caught at least.

[samplegirl]

11. He needs to learn how to spell

country maybe some prison time would get him some learning!!!

[Libertas1776]

12. ...

Good! Its about time these racist mother truckers realize that they are not just threatening some ordinary black guy they think they can push around. They are threatening the President of the world's most powerful nation, and you can be sure that he has one hell of a posse backing him up.

[randr]

13. Did they at least keep his guns?

Mental incompetence needs to qualify as a reason not to have a gun permit.

[LisaL]

14. If he didn't threaten to actually kill anyone, I fail to see how the

charges are going to stick. Free speech and all that.

[uppityperson]

20. Freedom of speech does not mean it is legal to threaten a president or PE.

There are laws saying that.

[NeoConsSuck]

21. What?

The subject line of his post was 'Shoot the Nig'. Do they make 50 caliber cameras?

[Paladin]

15. Try Not To Think About......

....all the psychos in this country, all the virulent racists, with all those oh-so-easy-to-acquire firearms. The ones who aren't spewing their intentions in advance on discussion boards.

Try not to think about people like that. Not if you want to get a decent night's sleep.....

[annabanana]

16. Score one for the Agent Man.

I like it when they do their jobs well.

[machI]

33. ECHELON has your emails too

ECHELON

ECHELON is a term associated with a global network of computers that automatically search through millions of intercepted messages for pre-programmed keywords or fax, telex and e-mail addresses. Every word of every message in the frequencies and channels selected at a station is automatically searched. The processors in the network are known as the ECHELON Dictionaries. ECHELON connects all these computers and allows the individual stations to function as distributed elements an integrated system.

http://www.fas.org/irp/program/process/echelon.htm

[AnnieBW]

17. Was that his Free Republic handle, too?

He's GOT to be a Freeper.

[blaze]

18. Yes!

I am so glad to see these internet threats being taken seriously! I can't even begin to imagine how much work it takes to protect our (soon to be) President.

A big thanks to ALL who are serving to protect!

[stevedeshazer]

19. This happens every day on Free Republic

It's a regular feature.

[jackpan1260]

28. It wouldn't blow my mind to see it on du

with the level of vitriol here lately.

[msanthrope]

24. What was his Freeper name??? n/t

[Sultana]

25. Holy shit, I use to live in La Mesa and I hated it

Enjoy jail Bitch.

[goforit]

27. Are they sure it didn't come from Cheney's inbox?

[Trajan]

29. Yahoo chat boards are jam packed with psychotic right wing nuts ....

Many say similar statements, and have for years ....

I suppose it is too much to expect someone who cannot spell 'radical' to understand that IP addresses are captured in Yahoo and allow officers of the law to track them down ...

Yahoo political chat is a fucking zoo ....

[Cheap_Trick]

31. I used to have a lot of fun going in there and stirring the little monkeys up

Man, they were screeching and flinging their poo in no time.

[Vektor]

30. I have a great idea!

Strip him of his guns, (and clothing) place a sandwich board on him, with a large font copy of his Yahoo post on both sides, and drop him off in the middle of Compton.

Problem solved.

[nc4bo]

32. Good. Stay aware net community and report f'ed up sh*t when and...

where you find it. Doesn't matter if other people don't agree with you, just report the scary crap and keep it moving - you'll sleep better. Do it for yourself.