20 Responses

1. Lots of arson in the news. Nothing seems real. Guess it’s too late for him to homeschool.

2. Be grateful for your enhanced understanding of the Torah prohibition on muzzling animals.

3. Off the rails? Yeah. People all over are being pushed off the rails with all this nutiness.
   Poor guy was feeling for his kid. I feel sorry for him.

4. Crazy

5. It is very frightening to see that a person could go to jail for comments like that on a chat.
   I wonder what Washington and Hamilton would say about that.

6. Aventura, not NMB

7. Hopefully, this maniac is being held in jail pending trial. He is obviously a threat to the school and its administrators even more now that his rants have been publicly exposed. Also, I wonder if someone who threatens to burn down the school with his own kid inside is allowed to retain custody of that child.

8. While Tens of Thousands unmasked and celebrities at Super Bowl and Parties. The problem is that The leftist govt have Bribed local community trusted institutions with Grant Money, to carry out Their Onerous forced Mandates on a local level, such as EANES Grant money and HRSA Funding. Innocent Children who are the lowest risk of Zero Percent mortality have been made to suffer the most. Healthy kids should not be wearing face diapers all day. The parent was at his wits end of helplessness.

9. Check the yichus.

10. Schmendrick, muzzling not allowed only when threshing (presumably because the animal is working with food and can not eat), but not at other times, and not to people.

    A better comparison: Avraham muzzled his animals – so that they do not cause damage to others.
    This is very questionable, of course:
    – muzzle on my animals only protects the others, so let others muzzle their trees and grasses
    – there is no proof that muzzle do anything for the animals: I put a neck-gator on my alli-gator and he still ate my neighbor. He loved him like himself.
    – my oxen eating your grass will give you a natural lawn. No risk of side effects.
    – Lot did not muzzle his animals and look at his beautiful daughters! And Avraham has an Arab for a son.

11. I really feel bad for this guy. He was tired of seeing his son be abused daily without any right to stop the abuse.

12. Neither of the comments reported count as “true threats”, so his arrest is illegal and his comments are protected speech.

    The first comment is addressed to some other person, telling them what they should have told the board member. In addition, the “burning” he says that person ought to have threatened seems to be figurative, not literal. He was telling this person that they should have said protesters will leave the school, whose ratings are dropping, and thus destroy it and force it to close. If prosecutors claim it meant literal arson, they will have to prove that beyond reasonable doubt.

    The second comment is not a threat at all — it’s an expression of a wish. That is completely protected speech, and whoever ordered his arrest for that should himself be arrested. It is completely legal to say that a place ought to burn, that one wants to burn it, or that one wishes someone would burn it, just as it’s legal to say that a person ought to die, that one wants to kill him, or that one hopes someone will kill him. None of those are threats, and thus they’re not illegal.

13. when i was a kid we threatened to burn the school down every time there was too much homework

14. I agree with expelling the child… because if parents are so offensive and resistant to school policies, then it’s not the school for him.

    However, having dad arrested is extreme. He was clearly ranting! Unless he has a history of making threats or being violent, he should have been asked to pull the post due to security concerns. If he refused and carried on, then maybe a police report would be warranted. Is there more to this story?

15. I’m not a criminal defense attorney, Baruch HaShem, but if I were, I would argue that “burn it down to the ground” is a figure of speech. He meant he intends to publicize highly critical comments about the institution. It is obvious he did not intend literally to commit arson, as evident from his comment, “we will leave and burn hillel down to the ground.” If they leave the premises, then they obviously would not be able to commit arson there. If I remember correctly, plenty of BLM protesters chanted slogans like, “burn it down”. He probably only had that figure of speech salient in his mind and thought it was acceptable, thanks to them. Granted, some of them did burn things down, but not all who chanted so were charged, so, you know. I guess there’s a problem when you have two different legal standards of the public. It can get confusing.

    Moreover, threatening to burn down a building does not necessarily imply any intent to kill or to cause bodily harm to anyone. Nowhere does his comment make explicit that he intends to burn it down while occupied with people. He has no anger towards students of the school. Rather, his comment clearly expresses his intent for parents to follow his lead to remove their children from the school. Whenever is a school occupied by staff or administration without any students present? So, even if he meant actual arson, he must have meant when the building was unoccupied, which is a much lesser offense.

    Even if the building was unoccupied because all students had withdrawn from the institution, what would be his motive then to commit arson? That would be totally irrational. His legal liability at that point would outweigh any personal benefit, since his purposes already would have been achieved by then. This seems like it would be a really easy legal case.

    Unless an event like this occurred in a state like the one that appropriated the name “Israel”, where he’d be tortured in the Russian Compound till they extracted something of a false confession from him, I can’t imagine the prosecution will have a case against him.

16. Even if the school has a bad policy, that is not a good excuse for such foul and violent threats.
    Lock him up for some time so he learns how to disagree with respect for others without resorting to treats.

17. You can rationalize all you want but given the current state of the world and the polarization of our society, even vague threats (and these weren’t vague) need to be taken seriously. Tens of millions of Americans may passionately disagree with mask mandates and they certainly haven’t been reluctant to voice their policy disagreements in a civil manner at public meetings, forums, chatboards etc. When someone like this makes a clear threat, you take it seriously until such time you have eliminated any potential risk. If he heeds mental health assistance, make sure he gets it.

18. Your headline is inappropriate, as I don’t believe he meant any physical harm. As well, his admirable looking out for his child’s welfare is to be commended, not to be derided as “off the rails”.

19. Dorah, what you’re advocating is a brazen violation of the constitution. Acting on your recommendation would be criminal, and those who do so belong in prison. Let’s Go Brandon.

20. If he is a “danger to society” what about the officials who mandated masks for kids? They should be imprisoned first. Same danger as burning down the school.