Amarillo Man Threatens Feds, Police, Various Groups Before Arrest
It's a new week, and that means it's time to file another one under the #onlyinamarillo files.
This one is an absolute doozy of one though. Before I begin on this one, I just want to state that I agree there could be some mental issues going on here and that should be considered and taken into account. Then again, there may not be and he's just an angry dude. Either is possible.
Amarillo resident Everett Wayne “Rhett” Copelin III was picked up on September 29th on charges of making interstate threats after posting not one, not two, but EIGHT different threats against seven different groups.
It all started online on the social media platform "Gab", when on August 21 when he threatened to kill black men that were in relationships with white women. That's bad enough in its own right. However, it got worse as the days progressed.
The very next day he threatened to blow up IRS agents. Now things are starting to get a bit scary. He threatened to go "kamizaze" against white law enforcement on August 31st.
He took a little time off from making the threats but came back on September 5th when he threatened to shoot police officers. What he didn't realize at the time was the day before making that threat, his threats were flagged to the FBI's Nationa Threats Operations Center in regards to his IRS threat.
A few days later on September 8th, he hopped back on the platform saying he was headed to the border to "start shooting invaders,” and decided to throw the feds into the mix by saying he was going to blow them away as well.
That same day, he stated he wanted to kill Jewish people in the government and law enforcement.
I'd think that would be enough at this point to go grab him, but he kept on making threats and the FBI just sat back and monitored what was going on.
Approximately one week later, he made a threat to start shooting Mexicans that he felt, "shouldn't even be here".
The one that seems to have done it for him though happened on September 25th. That was when he threatened to hang supporters of a certain candidate for Governor of Texas. Four days later, Copelin was picked up and brought in. He's facing up to 15 years in prison for the threats.