Web poster faces charges over shooting threat
SEATTLE – A Washington state man who wrote on a newspaper Web site that he was going to shoot up a shopping mall says he was just making a point after a mentally disturbed man went on a shooting spree. But prosecutors say he was making a threat.
Jeffrey N. Gargaro, 28, faces possible jail time for writing that he should shoot up a mall “just for the hell of it. … No drugs, no mental illness.” He is fighting the charge on free speech grounds.
“We admit he was stupid,” said Jeffrey Lustick, Gargaro’s lawyer. But “people say some pretty unusual things on blogs.”
Isaac Zamora, 28, began his rampage Sept. 2 near the town of Alger, 70 miles north of Seattle, and continued it on Interstate 5, investigators said. Described by his family as mentally disturbed, he was captured after a police chase and charged with six counts of murder.
The next day, Gargaro began his post on the Bellingham Herald’s Web site by telling another commenter to “shut up.” He added: “Also to all of you who blame drugs … shut up as well. You know what, I am going to go shoot up sunset square today … just for the hell of it. No drugs, no mental illness … you can blame todays episode on video games and George Bush’s example of ‘pay back’ to society.”
An officer in St. Louis saw Gargaro’s post the day after the shootings and pointed it out to the Bellingham Police Department. A detective obtained a search warrant and tracked Gargaro down at his home in Blaine, north of Bellingham.
Whatcom County Prosecutor Dave McEachran wrote in charging papers that the detective was “in reasonable fear … that the threat would be carried out and people could be killed or injured at the Sunset Square Mall.”
But Lustick said his client was clearly trying to make a political point – awkward though it may have been. The comment must be considered within the context of such reader-feedback sections and blogs, which can be “notoriously bombastic,” he said.
The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, but Gargaro has no prior convictions and would face a standard range of one to three months if found guilty.