A Gillette 18-year-old has learned that even joking about bombing the Pentagon on social media is a bad idea.
He got a visit from the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday evening after an agent at the Pentagon asked the department to look into the post on X (formerly Twitter).
The post said that “It’s time to bomb the … Pentagon” and was traced to a Gillette, Wyoming, IP address, Undersheriff Quentin Reynolds told Cowboy State Daily.
Deputies went to the home associated with the IP address on Hannum Road north of Gillette city limits, where the 18-year-old lives with his 38-year-old mother.
The teen expressed surprise that his threat aimed at the Pentagon was taken that seriously, Reynolds said. He said he had no intentions of bombing the federal building or wanting someone to act on his post. He told deputies that he has no means to carry out the threat even if he were serious.
In the end, the 18-year-old wasn’t ticketed, Reynolds said.
But that doesn’t mean the book is closed, the undersheriff said. While his office investigated the teen and determined there wasn’t an immediate threat, federal agents may still want to talk to the poster.
“We just identified and got all the information and advised him to be cautious,” Reynolds said. “I don’t know what (federal agents) will do with it.”
Yeah, Don’t Do That
The lesson this Gillette 18-year-old likely learned is that it’s a big deal to lob threats at federal agencies — no matter how empty, said Frank Groth, a retired career law enforcement officer who lives in Gillette.
“The thing that people have to remember is, dare I say it, Big Brother is watching,” Groth told Cowboy State Daily. “All the social media platforms have software in place that sniff out these types of posts and they flag them.”
Even if it’s evident someone is just all talk or joking, the feds will never take it that way, he said.
“In the climate we’re in, they’re absolutely going to take those things seriously until proven otherwise,” Groth said. “That’s essentially what a lot of states would call making a terroristic threat, and it’s a felony whether you’re joking or not.”
This particular teen probably thought like a lot of people on social media do, that you can pretty much say whatever you want anonymously.
“Nope, they’re paying very close attention, and it’s because of the times we’re in,” Groth said. “The mindset a lot of times on social media is, ‘I can say whatever I want because I’m behind a keyboard.’”
Greg Johnson can be reached at greg@cowboystatedaily.com.
