Tag Archives: Bomb Threats

St. Louis man charged over bomb threats to Jewish groups

By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A disgraced former journalist made eight bomb threats to Jewish organizations across the United States, including one in which he called for a “Jewish Newtown,” posing as an ex-girlfriend to retaliate after she had broken up with him, U.S. prosecutors said on Friday.

Juan Thompson, 31, was taken into custody on Friday morning in St. Louis, the first arrest to result from a federal investigation into a surge of threats against Jewish Community Centers (JCCs) and schools that has rattled American Jews.

Authorities are examining more than 100 threats made against JCCs by phone in five waves this year, which appear to be unrelated to the Thompson allegations. Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey met with Jewish leaders on Friday morning to discuss the ongoing investigation.

A criminal complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan accused Thompson of making threats, mostly by email, against organizations including a Jewish museum in New York and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). All occurred after the first flood of phone threats in early January.

The hoax threats against JCCs have stoked fears of a resurgence in anti-Semitism and forced many centers to be evacuated, including some with day care for young children.

Prosecutors said Thompson aimed to portray his ex-girlfriend as an anti-Semite, a characterization he repeated on Twitter. It was unclear if he shared those sentiments, and his recent posts did not include explicit anti-Semitic thoughts.

But the ADL said he had been “on the radar” due to activities, including “rants against white people.”

Thompson was a reporter for the Intercept, a news website, until he was fired last year for allegedly inventing sources and quotes.

Intercept editor Betsy Reed said in a statement that the website was “horrified” by his arrest.

‘NASTY RACIST WHITE GIRL’

The Intercept said in February 2016 that Thompson had employed a fake email account to pose as a source in an effort to hide his fabrications.

After his girlfriend broke up with him in July 2016, prosecutors said, Thompson used the same technique in a sustained harassment campaign against her.

A day after the relationship ended, Thompson sent an email purporting to be from a producer at a national news organization to her boss at a social service company in New York, according to the complaint. The email claimed she had been pulled over for drunk driving and sued for spreading a sexually transmitted disease.

In the following weeks, the woman received messages from a supposed relative of Thompson, falsely claiming Thompson was on his deathbed after a shooting.

Thompson later threatened to publicize nude photos of her, prosecutors said. He also sent a message to a national children’s welfare organization, claiming she admitted watching child pornography.

In late January, Thompson began emailing bomb threats to Jewish groups using his own name and then accused her on Twitter of having framed him. He also sent threats pretending to be her, according to the complaint.

The “Jewish Newtown” email apparently referred to the massacre of 26 children and educators at a Connecticut school in 2012.

On Feb. 24, he posted on Twitter, “Know any good lawyers? Need to stop this nasty/racist #whitegirl I dated who sent a bomb threat in my name.”

Thompson was due to appear in federal court in St. Louis later Friday on one count of cyberstalking. It was not clear whether he had a lawyer.

The ex-girlfriend could not be reached for comment.

Authorities said they were still investigating the rash of threats against JCCs, as well as the desecration of headstones at Jewish cemeteries in Philadelphia, St. Louis and Rochester, New York.

St. Louis police will question Thompson about the city’s graveyard vandalism, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen and Gina Cherelus in New York and Dustin Volz in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Trump issues first public condemnation of anti-Semitic incidents

Alveda King (C), the niece of slain U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., praises U.S. President Donald Trump as he visits the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, U.S., February 21, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

By Ayesha Rascoe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump delivered his first public condemnation of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States on Tuesday after a new spate of bomb threats to Jewish community centers around the country and vandalism in a Jewish cemetery.

Several of the centers were evacuated for a time on Monday after receiving the threats, the JCC Association of North America said, and another center was evacuated on Tuesday morning in San Diego, California, according to police.

Also, vandals toppled about 170 headstones at the Chesed Shel Emeth Society cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri, over the weekend.

“The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers are horrible and are painful and a very sad reminder of the work that still must be done to root out hate and prejudice and evil,” Trump told reporters.

He was speaking at the end of a tour of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, which Trump said showed “why we have to fight bigotry, intolerance and hatred in all of its very ugly forms.”

The comments marked a change for Trump, who had not explicitly and publicly condemned the threats against Jews when asked last week. Instead, he spoke more generally about his hopes of making the nation less “divided.”

The president reacted with anger at a news conference last week when a journalist from a Jewish magazine asked how his government planned to “take care” of a rise in threats.

Trump berated the reporter for asking a “very insulting” question, appearing to believe the reporter was accusing him of being anti-Semitic.

“Number one, I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life,” the president said, adding that he was also the least racist person. Trump has often noted that one of his daughters is a convert to Judaism, he has Jewish grandchildren and he employs many Jews in his business.

Trump’s daughter Ivanka, a close adviser to her father who practices Orthodox Judaism, responded to the latest threats in a message on her Twitter account on Monday evening.

“America is a nation built on the principle of religious tolerance,” she said. “We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers.”

On Tuesday, Trump again declined to answer a question about what action he would take to address the threats to Jewish organizations. Sean Spicer, a White House spokesman, said later that Trump would respond through “deed and action” over the coming months and years.

‘BAND-AID’

Trump’s derogatory campaign rhetoric against Muslims and Mexican immigrants won enthusiastic backing from prominent white supremacists who embrace anti-Jewish, anti-black and anti-Muslim ideologies. It also drew greater media attention to fringe extremist groups.

Trump has disavowed their support. His chief strategist, Steve Bannon, is the former publisher of Breitbart, a news website popular among right-wing extremist groups.

The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect in New York, which has criticized the Trump administration repeatedly over anti-Semitism, said his comments were too little too late.

“The president’s sudden acknowledgement is a Band-Aid on the cancer of anti-Semitism that has infected his own administration,” Steven Goldstein, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.

Spicer rejected the characterization.

“I wish that they had praised the president for his leadership in this area,” he told reporters when asked about Goldstein’s comment. “Hopefully as time goes by they’ll recognize his commitment to civil rights.”

Jewish groups criticized the White House for omitting any mention of Jews in its statement marking Holocaust Memorial Day last month. The White House said the omission was deliberate since the Nazis also killed people who were not Jews, if in smaller numbers. The stated goal of the Nazis was the extermination of Jews.

One day after speaking at a security summit in Munich, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence spent Sunday morning walking through the grounds of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany with a camp survivor.

Over the course of the U.S. Presidents Day holiday on Monday, bomb threats were sent to 11 Jewish community centers, including ones in the Houston, Chicago and Milwaukee areas, according to the JCC association. They were found to be hoaxes, as was another threat that forced the evacuation of a center in San Diego on Tuesday morning, according to police.

No arrests were made. The FBI has said it is investigating recent threats as “possible civil rights violations.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a prominent Muslim human rights group, has offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of anyone behind the threats, saying Muslims felt a duty to support any targeted minority group.

The incidents on Monday followed three waves of bomb threats so far this year. In all, at least 69 incidents at 54 Jewish community centers in 27 states and one Canadian province have been reported, according to the JCC association.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington, Tom Gannam in St. Louis and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Frances Kerry and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Jewish centers report bomb threats across United States

By Brendan O’Brien

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – Several Jewish community centers (JCC) across the United States were evacuated for a time on Monday after receiving bomb threats, the latest wave of threatened attacks against them this year, the national umbrella organization said.

Some 11 centers including those in the Houston, Chicago and Milwaukee areas received phoned-in bomb threats that were later determined to be hoaxes, said David Posner, a director at JCC Association of North America who advises centers on security.

No arrests were made and no one was injured. All of the centers returned to normal operations, Posner said in a statement.

The FBI was investigating the incidents, Posner said.

Officials at the FBI were not immediately available for comment.

Officials at the Harry and Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, north of Milwaukee, received a bomb threat at 10:15 a.m. local time, the second such incident at the center over the last three weeks, it said on Twitter.

“Taking very cautious measures, we are sheltering in our gym, as has been recommended,” the Milwaukee JCC said in a text message sent to parents of children who attend the preschool at the center, according to an NBC affiliate in Milwaukee.

The center reopened two hours later, the center said on Twitter.

Monday’s incidents come after three waves of bomb threats in 2017. In all, 69 incidents at 54 JCCs in 27 states and one Canadian province have been reported, according to the JCC Association of North America.

“We are concerned about the anti-Semitism behind these threats, and the repetition of threats intended to interfere with day-to-day life,” Posner said.

Jewish community centers typically offer after-school activities, fitness programs and various other services.

Over the weekend, the headstones at the graves of about 170 Jews were vandalized in the St. Louis area, the Washington Post reported.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Bomb threats target U.S. Jewish centers for third time in a month

NEW YORK (Reuters) – More than a dozen Jewish community centers around the United States and one in Canada received bomb threats on Tuesday, the third wave of threatened attacks against them this month.

A total of 14 centers across 10 states, along with one in Canada, received the threats, according to David Posner, a director at the JCC Association of North America who advises centers on security.

He said most of the centers had received the all-clear from law enforcement officials and had resumed regular operations, though security was heightened.

“We are concerned about the anti-Semitism behind these threats,” Posner said in an emailed statement. He added that the previous threats phoned in this month were deemed to be hoaxes and that no one has been injured.

Jewish community centers in California, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Utah, Wisconsin and Ontario, Canada received the threats, according to the statement.

Telephoned threats on Jan. 9 were made against 16 Jewish community centers in nine U.S. states, and a second wave on Jan. 18 targeted 27 centers in 17 states.

Some of the calls were made using an automated “robocall” system, while others were made by individuals, security officials have said.

After the second round of threats, the FBI said that it and the Justice Department were investigating possible civil rights violations in connection with threats. No arrests have been made.

(Reporting by David Ingram; additional reporting by Curtis Skinner; Editing by Sandra Maler and Dan Grebler)