Have the Chickens Come Home to Roost?

In my town of Claremont, CA, the FBI just arrested a man for sending “threatening letters containing a powdery substance” to multiple government offices in Los Angeles County.

Here‘s how the FBI describes it:

Claremont Man Arrested for Sending Threatening Letters to L.A. County Dept. of Child and Family Services

LOS ANGELES–Special Agents with the FBI and the United States Postal Inspection Service arrested a Claremont man this morning on federal charges of sending threatening letters containing a powdery substance to multiple offices of the Department of Children and Family Services and the Los Angeles County Children’s Courthouse over a period of approximately 18 months.

Martin Calvin Yarbrough Jr., 48, was taken into custody at his residence this morning without incident after being indicted by a federal grand jury on Tuesday. The indictment charges Yarbrough with 13 counts of making threats and hoaxes.

The arrest of Yarbrough was announced by Steven Martinez, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI in Los Angeles; B. Bernard Ferguson, Postal Inspector in Los Angeles; and United States Attorney André Birotte Jr.

According to the indictment, Yarbrough sent a series of envelopes through the United States Postal Service to various offices of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) and the Edmund D. Edelman Children’s Court in Monterey Park. Each letter contained either a white powdery substance or a bluish granular substance that was determined to be a chemical poison. Mailed between November 2008 and May 2010, the letters were sent to DCFS offices in Covina, Lancaster, El Monte, Chatsworth, Los Angeles, Santa Fe Springs, Pomona and Monterey Park.

Steven Martinez, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI in Los Angeles, said: “Using threatening letters and hoax powders to convey discontent is a serious crime and, as evidenced with the arrest of Mr. Yarbrough, has significant consequences. The major law enforcement response generated every time such a letter is received is time-consuming and accomplished at the expense of costs taxpayers. Furthermore, the painstaking field and lab testing takes precious time away from Hazmat experts and public health officials whose time would be better spent investigating legitimate threats.”

…

If he is convicted, Yarbrough would face a maximum statutory penalty of five years in federal prison for each count.

Yarbough’s father is Claremont resident Martin Calvin Yarbrough Sr., a poll watcher and fan of the Rev. [sic] Jeremiah Wright. Here’s what the father wrote about Wright on a Chicago Sun Times story in 2008. Wright’s conspiracy theories have, in other words, real consequences.

I HAVE MET DR. WRIGHT. HE HAS COME TO CALIFORNIA ON A NUMBER OF OCCASIONS TO PREACH AT MY CHURCH. HE IS A PERSONAL FRIEND OF MY PASTOR. HE AND MY PASTOR WERE “LEATHERNECKS”, MY PASTORS STYLE OF PREACHING IS LIKE DR. WRIGHT. HOW COULD A MAN WHO SERVED IN THE MILITARY HATE HIS COUNTRY? IN THE BLACK CHURCHES OF TODAY PASTORS OF DR.WRIGHT’S AGE GROUP PREACH ALIKE. IT STEMS FROM THE FRUSTRATIONS OF THEIR LIVES FROM ALL THE THINGS THAT HAPPEN TO THEM WHILE THEY WERE SERVING THEIR COUNTRY.AND RETURN HOME TO FIND SO MANY INJUSTICES ,AND RACISMS. OBAMA HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS PASTOR’S PREACHING. HE CAN ACCEPT AND REJECT WHAT EVER HE HEARS. IT DOES NOT CHANGE HIS FEELINGS FOR HIS PASTOR. IN MY BIBLE IT SAYS LOVE YOUR ENEMY .I KEEP GETTING E=MAILS FROM “PLOUFFE” IS HE REALLY OBAMA’S MANAGER? I MAILED A CONTRIBUTION TO A POST OFFICE BOX IN CHICAGO IS THIS A CORRECT ADDRESS? I WILL HELP AS LONG AS I AS KNOW THAT THIS A “HONEST SYSTEM” THE INTERNET CAN BE VERY DANGEROUSLY USED THING. I AM A NEGRO ,AGE 76, I REGISTERED TO VOTE AT AGE 19. I HAVE BEEN A POLL-WORKER WITH THREE PRECINCTS FOR MORE THAN 40 YEARS. WHICH FRATERNIY DOES BARACK BELONG TO IS HE AN ALPHA PHI ALPHA MAN? LET ME KNOW. HIS CHANCES LOOK GOOD. THERE IS A LOT OF WORK AHEAD TO DO. LET KEEP BUSY.LET ME KNOW WHEN HE RETURNS TO CALIFORNIA. THANKS MARTIN

Mr. Yarborough likely took his son with him to church, where Wright’s style of fear mongering and governmental conspiracy is commonplace. While the sins of the father should never be visited upon the son, the sins of the son often owe much to the bad parenting of the father. Now his son is charged with what amounts to a repeated attack on the government. You could say that the chickens came home to roost and from the looks of it, this chicken will be kept couped up for quite a long time.

We don’t know that Mr. Yarborough was, in any way motivated by the ravings of radical preachings. He could, in other words, just be a simple man man. But then again, those preachings –and his father’s trivializing of Wright’s hateful teachings — could have had an influence.

But of course, our government will never investigate Wright’s style churches — not when President Obama was a parishioner and Attorney General Holder ignores the New Black Panthers. Instead they will go after us, tea party members and conservatives, even when mad men with no obvious ideology are to blame. “Rhetoric” kills only when it is right-wing, apparently.