A mentally ill man from southern Indiana has been arrested for threatening the life of GOP frontrunner Donald Trump and his family in a YouTube video featuring the suspect wearing a mask and waving a pair of handguns.
Authorities in Floyd County, Indiana, arrested Richard Deville, Jr., 26, after the U.S. Secret Service was alerted to the online video.
In his video, Deville, Jr., from Clarksville, is seen waving a pair of loaded guns and warning Trump, “Your daughter, your wife and you are dead, bitch. I’m serious. You are dead.”
The guns are clearly loaded, as Deville is seen on the video putting the loaded magazines into the guns.
“It was very strongly worded, and I think the message needs to be sent that’s not allowed and we’re going to hold someone criminally liable for that,” Floyd County Prosecutor Keith Henderson told the media.
“The threat was very explicit,” Henderson added. “The threat displayed handguns, and there was specific language as to how and when the threat would be carried out.”
“Our country stands for freedom of speech, but it absolutely cannot tolerate someone’s life being threatened because they run for office,” Henderson concluded.
The suspect, who has a police record, readily admitted to making the video, telling authorities he thought the video would make him look cool to his friends.
In fact, it appears the suspect has mental issues and was egged on to making the video by “friends” who wanted to get him in trouble.
Jackie Cox, the mother of the suspect’s child, told WISH TV that the young man “does this stuff to impress his friends.”
Cox told the TV station she was even on the phone just before Deville made the video and heard those “friends” laughing in the background. “He’s slow in the head and his friends take advantage of it,” she said.
“I kept telling him don’t do it. Don’t do it and you can hear his friends in the background saying just do it. You’re the one that looks tough,” Cox said.
The suspect was charged with intimidation and unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious felon.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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