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Veteran arrested for online cop threats

Internet searches also revealed killing a few public figures
Perez

DENVER – A 33-year-old Colorado Springs man arrested for posting online threats calling for the killing of current and former police officers is a military veteran whose father worked in law enforcement for the Air Force, investigators said.

Jeremiah M. Perez was arrested Monday after Google tipped the FBI.

Perez, under the name “Vets Hunting Cops,” posted on social-media sites that “our group” has killed six retired sheriffs and police officers since Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August. He said they would “hunt” two more in Colorado, according to documents filed in federal court. Federal public defender Brian Leedy, who will be representing Perez, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

FBI agents began doing surveillance on Perez’s house in Colorado Springs as soon as Google told them about the threats. Google said it noticed the posts after a viewer flagged them as inappropriate. It brought them to the attention of law enforcement Dec. 17 because it believed there was “an emergency involving imminent death or serious bodily injury ... immediate disclosure to you of certain information is required to avert the emergency.”

Perez allegedly told investigators that his intent was to engage in an online conversation, but no one commented on the posts. He told authorities he has had some problems with the police before, including growing up around officers and one time when he believes he was treated differently because he is Latino, according to the documents.

He said his father was a police officer, and he had some bad experiences growing up around law enforcement.

“I have a family of cops and they are ALL BAD,” he wrote in one post, according to the documents. “NOT A SINGLE COP IS GOOD. either they all do wrong or they protect those that do.”

Perez said the posts were “misplaced frustration and a way of experimenting with words,” and that he knew he was wrong, the documents say.

“Perez’s frustrations were part of his ‘strange sense of justice,”’ the court documents say.

An investigation of his computer also found Internet searches for information on how to kill a variety of politicians and public figures, including President Barack Obama, Fox News pundits and Republican Rep. Cory Gardner of Colorado.

Perez told authorities he never planned to follow through with the violence he was researching.



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