New York: Two men who were arrested at New York’s Penn Station after authorities spotted social media posts about attacking a synagogue represented a real danger to the city’s Jewish community, Mayor Eric Adams said Monday.
“This was not an idle threat,” Adams said at a news conference where he was joined by officials from the FBI, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and other agencies involved in the arrests early Saturday of Christopher Brown, 21, and Matthew Mahrer, 22, on charges including criminal possession of a weapon.
“This was a real threat,” he said.
According to the criminal complaint against him, Brown made a series of threats on Twitter including, on Thursday, “Gonna ask a Priest if I should become a husband or shoot up a synagogue and die,” and then on Friday, “This time I’m really gonna do it.”
Authorities linked the tweets to Brown, of Aquebogue, on Long Island, and identified Mahrer, of Manhattan, as an associate, said Michael Driscoll, head of the FBI’s New York office.
A description of Brown and Mahrer went out to law enforcers, and two MTA police officers spotted the two at Penn Station late Friday and arrested them, police said.
Brown had a large military-style knife, a ski mask and a swastika arm patch when he was arrested, authorities said.
Read the article by Karen Matthews in WAToday.