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| 19-year-old Brandon Griesemer - free on bail the same day he was arrested for making terrorist threats |
As has been widely reported, the bespectacled grocery store clerk from Novi, Michigan made multiple threats of violence against CNN employees and used racial slurs against Muslims, African-Americans and Jews.
Just like Trump has. Repeatedly.
Given the scores of mass shootings and other unprovoked violent attacks that have taken place across the U.S. in recent months since 45's election in 2016, Griesemer's comments were disturbing.
In his first call placed on the afternoon of Tuesday January 9th, he told a CNN operator:
"Fake news. I'm coming to gun you all down. Fuck you, fucking niggers." before hanging up.
In a subsequent call he said:
"You are going down. I have a gun and I coming to Georgia right now to go to the CNN headquarters to fucking gun down every single last one of you. I have a team of people. It's going to be great man. You gotta get prepared for this one."
Griesemer repeatedly ranted about CNN being "fake news" during some of the 22 calls he made to CNN between January 9th and 10th.
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| Inside the massive CNN Center in Atlanta |
Trump retweeted a video GIF of him physically attacking a man with the CNN logo superimposed over his head.
Which he did on the morning of July 2, 2017, essentially endorsing violence against a news organization.
So it's possible Griesemer has (in a sick way) internalized Trump's repeated, childish vilification of CNN - as if the 1st Amendment of the Constitution is something he can turn on and off like a like switch as he pleases.
But there's clearly much more going on with Brandon Griesemer than internalizing and parroting Trump's disturbing narcissistic obsession with CNN reporting things he doesn't like.
It doesn't take a degree in psychology to know that the toxic rage Griesemer directed at CNN over the phone is likely indicative of something deeper.
I mean if you don't like CNN, why watch it right?
According to Tom Clearly's Heavy.com article on Griesemer, he lives with his parents and brother.
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| Brandon Griesemer graduated from Michigan's Novi High School back in 2017 |
As Cleary reported, Griesemer's father Mark Griesemer told WaPo that "this whole thing has been a mistake".
But both the FBI and a CNN investigator who traced the calls confirmed that the calls were linked to a cell tower near the Griesemer home.
The fact that he called CNN 22 times from the same number over a two-day period suggests this kid isn't the brightest pumpkin in the patch if he didn't realize that repeated threatening calls to a major global news media company could be quickly traced.
And if 22 calls over a two-day period was a "mistake" as his father suggested, how come the FBI was able to confirm that Griesemer also made threatening calls to the Islamic Center of Ann Arbor back in September? Calls that were confirmed by his mother in an interview with the FBI.
Was that "a mistake" too?
Once again, Trump, who immediately takes to Twitter after any terrorist attack committed by a radicalized Muslim anywhere on the planet (or, as in the case of Sweden, terrorist attacks that did not happen), predictably had nothing to say about Griesemer making a terrorist threat against his nemesis CNN.
But given that the terrorist was white, and was essentially espousing the same kind of racial hatred on which Trump's entire campaign and presidency is based, that's not surprising.
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| Timothy Caughman (left), killed with a sword by James Harris Jackson (right) in New York in 2017 |
He told NYPD detectives that the gruesome killing was "a practice run" for a planned killing spree against black men because he was personally repulsed by the idea of black men dating white women.
Millions reacted in horror, but Trump said nothing about the killing.
Just three months later in June, the horrific and unprovoked racially-motivated stabbing attack on a crowded light-rail train was committed by enraged white transient Jeremy Joseph Christian.
Remember that guy?
He's the homeless ex-felon who began shouting racial and xenophobic slurs at a 16-year-old African-American girl and her friend who was wearing a hijab - when horrified onlookers tried to intervene and stop him, he fatally stabbed two of them and seriously injured another.
Trump said nothing about that heinous racially-motivated killing either.
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| Judge Anthony Patti |
Evidently Magistrate Judge Anthony Patti didn't find Brandon Griesemer's terroristic threats all that threatening either, on the same day the 19-year-old was arrested (last Friday) he was released from the federal court in the Eastern District of Michigan on a $10,000 unsecured bond.
That means he didn't even have to put up bail.
The judge just let him walk after admonishing Griesemer not to make any threats against anyone.
(Remember, 16-year-old Kalief Browder was held in Rikers Island for three years, including two years in solitary confinement on charges he stole a backpack - he was never charged and later committed suicide.)
Am I suggesting that Brandon Griesemer being released without having to put up bail hours after being arrested on charges of threatening to kill employees of CNN was a miscarriage of justice?
Not at all.
Griesemer was charged with making terroristic threats and will have to appear back in court on February 9th - time will tell if they make a case against him.
But to me, his release on an unsecured bond reflects America's two-tier justice system in America - one that views the accused very differently depending on the color of their skin.
After all, had a black 19-year-old who worked part-time at a grocery store and lived with his parents called Breitbart News' headquarters 22 different times over two days and threatened to shoot employees - he'd still be in jail.
And you-know-who would be sitting in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum indignantly tweeting about it right now.
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