Threats Posted on Police Department's Online Complaint Form Were "True Threats" In Context

United States v. Stevens, 2018 WL 721676 (10th Cir. February 6, 2018) (OK): Stevens was convicted of 10 counts of interstate communication with intent to injure. The government alleged he posted 10 messages on the Tulsa Police Department’s online citizen complaint form. He did this after Officer Betty Shelby shot and killed Terence Crutcher, an unarmed African-American man. In the police video, he is seen raising his hands above his head and positioning himself to be frisked when Shelby shoots him.

Stevens filed a motion to dismiss the indictment on First Amendment grounds, arguing his messages were not true threats. The standard for deciding such a motion is whether a reasonable jury could find that the communications constituted true threats. A communication is a true threat when one who hears or reads it would reasonably consider that an actual threat has been made. Here a reasonable jury could find the statements to be true threats. Stevens ‘targeted messages of deadly action at Tulsa police officers’ specifically and generally. For example, one message said, “Betty is not going to get 3 years probation and a pension, she is getting a bullet through her brain.” In another he wrote, “if killing every last one of you and your families, your wives, your children is what it takes to drive that point home, so be it.” In context, these were true threats.