‘Heavily armed’ man arrested after threatening to kill Jewish leaders in Michigan

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said Thursday she was targeted by a “heavily armed” individual whom the FBI arrested in February for allegedly threatening to kill Jewish members of Michigan’s government.

A recently unsealed criminal complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan last month, identified Tipton, Michigan resident Jack Eugene Carpenter III as the perpetrator of the violent threats, issued via Twitter.

“I’m going back to Michigan now threatening to apply the death penalty to anyone who is Jewish in the Michigan government if they don’t leave or confess,” he tweeted on February 17, according to the complaint.

“Because I can do it legally, can’t I?”

Carpenter’s mother told Michigan State Police that her son was in Texas at the time and had recently asked her for money to return to Michigan. When she refused, she said he got angry and pledged to “sell [silver]to raise the necessary funds instead.

According to the complaint, the next morning he tweeted, “I will be returning to Michigan, still driving with expired plates. You might want to let everyone know, and the Sheriff of Wayne County as well, that any attempt to subdue me will be met with deadly force in self-defense.

The document says Carpenter had previously been investigated for allegedly stealing a handgun from his girlfriend and had previously been arrested on suspicion of assault.

His mother told authorities that Carpenter was in possession of three handguns, a 12-gauge shotgun and two shotguns, one of which is identified as a “military style” weapon.

In addition to allegedly targeting Nessel, Carpenter also named Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in various online screeds, as well as Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was the nation’s top infectious disease expert during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The FBI has confirmed that I was the target of the heavily armed defendant in this case,” Nessel said. said in a tweet THURSDAY. “I sincerely hope that federal authorities take this offense as seriously as my Hate Crimes and Domestic Terrorism Unit takes conspiracies to assassinate elected officials.”

A University of Michigan spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Carpenter was fired in 2021 after working at the school for 10 years.

Although the university did not address the specific circumstances of his departure, a The Twitter account identified as Carpenter’s makes repeated references to COVID-19, vaccines and various far-right conspiracy theories, including QAnon and baseless denials of the 2020 presidential election results.