Forum Post: DEATH THREATS against OWS members and supporters

On Thursday November 3 at 6:11 p.m. EDT, a well-known troll going by the name "BowToYourKing" posted on this forum a completely inane announcement about McDonald's. This is the link to the post that has since been deleted since, although I kept a copy for my files :

http://occupywallst.org/forum/mcdonalds-has-just-made-an-ows-announcement/#comment-276814

As I usually do with such drivel, I aswered with a single word : "IGNORE".

That word was enough to infuriate "BowToYourKing" to the point that he responded : "Time to start shooting OWSers, starting with TIOUAISE".

As we all know, death threats on an Internet forum - in this case, against OWS members & supporters and myself - are expressly forbidden by law and result in a criminal record and possible charges.

I immediately contacted the Moderator and he/she never did respond, but the comment soon disappeared.

I then challenged "BowToYourKing" - let's call him BTYK - to explain himself and he responded in this way : "I didn't delete shit, dweeb. Fuck you and the moderator of this band of lazy, over entitled douchebags."

Interesting to note that BTYK never denied posting the threat. He merely denies deleting it personally - so I surmise that the Mod must have done so. Also notable is the fact that he never retracted the death threat nor apologized for it. He just spewed out more hatred and contempt.

As usual, his fellow trolls immediately gathered around him to defend him. In fact, one of them wrote : "I, for one, agree with Bow." Charming buddies who condone violence! And another persisted in refusing to answer my question : "Do you find such threats of violence acceptable?"

The next day, I was fully expecting BTYK to have been banned for life from this forum and in fact reported to authorities as is normal procedure in such cases. But NO, he was still there, still posting his nonsense and making blatantly racist and islamophobic comments - in open defiance of the moderating policies of this forum.

In response to an Egyptian who posted a very thoughtful and wise piece, BTYK wrote; "Arabs are filthy". To which I responded : "RACISM is filthy." And he answered : "Dirty muslim scum".

I once again wrote to the Mod asking : "Mr. (or Mrs.) Moderator, I am known to have a healthy sense of humor, but this clearly goes well beyond the limits of the acceptable. WHY, I ask you, has this user not been banned from this forum? What does it TAKE to get banned? Has OWS been informed that a user has actually uttered death threats against them? And finally, has this user's true identity been successfully traced?"

Still no answer from the Mod over 48 hours after the incident, so I called a friend who knows a cop who put me in touch with a detective specializing in Internet criminality. He was adamant that "a death threat is always considered to be a serious crime" and that in view of the current political climate, BTYK's threat were "not to be taken lightly". He insisted that the Mod must 1 - trace the man's identity 2 - report the incident to police in his locality 3 - warn OWS leadership that a threat was proferred. Finally I asked him point blank : "Do you think this man would be capable of shooting people in a park?" Answer : "Well, judging from his writing, he sounds consumed by hatred as a sociopath would be... and we HAVE seen characters like that go on shooting sprees".

So, Mr. or Mrs. Mod and OWS, without getting paranoid or too uptight over this, please be AWARE and follow normal procedure for such cases, that is report this man before he harms himself or others. If he gets professional help, you could well be doing him and society a huge favor.