Utah man killed by the FBI after he made threats against Joe Biden.

 

Craig Robertson. New York Post. 

A Utah man was killed by the FBI after he made threats against Joe Biden. New York Post. The incident happened at 6:15 AM while the FBI was serving a warrant. The FBI claimed that Craig Robertson was armed when agents shot him during their raid. Robertson had many social media threats against Biden and other top Democrats on Facebook and also threatened the FBI. He also threatened Biden in anticipation of his visit to Utah saying he would "dust off the M24 sniper rifle". Robertson was 75 years old. 

My Comment:

Robertson made a huge mistake in threatening Biden and other top Democrats. That will, at the very least, get you a visit from the Secret Service as it is hugely illegal to threaten the president, even one as undeserving of the title as Joe Biden. Indeed, threatening anyone on social media is a terrible idea as you will get in trouble every time. Robertson was right to be investigated and I think there was more than enough evidence to have him be arrested for a crime. 

What is unique about this case is that Robertson was shot and killed. That is... unusual to say the least. The vast majority of people that make threats aren't even prosecuted, let alone killed by the FBI. To be sure, Robertson's threats were a lot more explicit and time sensitive than most threats but did the FBI really have to kill him?

The situation reminds me of the Branch Davidian standoff. David Koresh was wanted by the ATF for trumped up charges of making machine guns and the ATF had every opportunity to pick him up when he went on his regular walks. Instead of doing that the ATF tried to do a flashy raid in an effort to bolster their funding and distract from the Ruby Ridge scandal. It ended with a huge pile of dead bodies and I wonder if something similar happened here. The Lavoy Fincum shooting is also pretty similar as they took him down in a way that was very likely to end in his death. 

 You can't tell me that there weren't other options than an early morning raid on this mans house. Why couldn't they monitor him until he left his house and then arrest him there when he was less likely to be armed? The way they did it seemed to assure that Robertson was going to die, which might of been the point. It's very possible that this was an assassination of its own instead of an attempt to be an arrest. I am very interested if the body cam footage for this incident will ever be released. Normally I give police the benefit of the doubt but given the FBI's obvious and odious bias against critics of Biden I have very little confidence that this is a good shooting. 

My other question is how much of a threat Robertson really was. He was very clearly well armed and had the rifles and ghillie suits that he was threatening to use to attack Joe Biden. He also had some pretty violent fantasies that if he acted out would be a big deal. He was also threatening the FBI. But he was also 75 years old and it poor shape. Plus it would be unlikely that he would be able to get past Biden's security on short timing. I don't think he had a realistic chance of killing Biden but he might have been able to get someone with less protection then him. 

Was he even serious? It's possible that Robertson was just venting. It's totally understandable that people would be upset about the current direction of this country and I can totally understand being furious with Biden and other Democrats. I am at least smart enough to not do anything stupid about it but maybe Robertson was just kind of an idiot that didn't know better? He absolutely should have known better but sometimes people are just dumb about these things. I'd never issue a threat like this no matter how angry I was, but not everyone knows how badly doing so works out for people. 

It's also a possibility that he didn't care anymore. At 75 and in apparent poor health, maybe this was a suicide by FBI? It wouldn't be the first time someone did something stupid so the cops would kill them is it possible this is another case like this? And perhaps he wanted to be a martyr or something (if so then it worked, people are mad about this shooting). 

I also wonder why Facebook didn't ban him from the platform. He was clearly violating the terms of service but was allowed to continue to post threats. I am guessing the Secret Service must have said something to Facebook to keep him posting. That seems counterproductive. I do wonder if Robertson would still be alive if he had just been banned after he posted something violent...