A man from Alaska has been arrested and accused of threatening to kill six of the nine US supreme court justices and some of their family members, authorities have said – as a judge in Kentucky was shot dead on Thursday amid rising concerns about violence against public officials.
Panos Anastasiou, 76, has been indicted on federal charges for allegedly sending more than 465 messages to the supreme court through a public court website. The messages contained graphic threats of assassination and torture, along with racist and homophobic rhetoric, according to the justice department.
The indictment does not specify which justices Anastasiou targeted, but the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, said the man made the graphic threats as retaliation for court decisions he disagreed with.
“Our democracy depends on the ability of public officials to do their jobs without fearing for their lives or the safety of their families,” Garland said.
Anastasiou was released from detention late on Thursday with a list of conditions, including not contacting, directly or indirectly, any of the six justices or their family members.
During the hearing, magistrate Kyle Reardon noted some of the messages Anastasiou allegedly sent between March 2023 and mid-July 2024, including calling for the assassination of two of the Republican-appointed justices so the current Democratic president could appoint their successors.
Anastasiou received a visit from FBI agents last year and instead of toning down his rhetoric after receiving that visit, he increased the frequency of his messages and their vitriolic language, the judge said.
Threats targeting federal judges overall have more than doubled in recent years amid a surge of similar violent messages directed at public officials around the country, the US Marshals Service previously said.
Meanwhile, a judge in a rural Kentucky county was shot dead in his courthouse chambers by the local sheriff, the police said. The sheriff has since been charged with murder.
According to CBS News, officials said the sheriff shot the judge in his chambers following an argument but did not give further details.
A survey conducted this summer indicates an increase in support for political violence in the US. Leaders of gun safety groups have blamed the proliferation of firearms for the deadliness of such events.
The rise in support for political violence in the US is happening at a time when there is widespread misinformation and heightened partisanship, leading to growing concerns regarding potential disruptions to the upcoming presidential election.
Just this week alone, former president Donald Trump was the target of another apparentassassination attempt, only two months after he was shot at and injured during a rally in Pennsylvania, where an attendee was killed and two others were injured.
Also this week, suspicious packages, some of which contained white powder, were sent to election officials in 16 states, marking the second time in a year that suspicious mail has been sent to election officials in multiple states.
Over the summer, it was reported that Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who prosecuted Donald Trump in the hush-money case, received threats targeting him, and that Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing that case, also faced threats.
Shenna Bellows, Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, had her home swatted last year after she disqualified Trump from the presidential ballot, and justices on the Colorado supreme court faced death threats after making a similar decision.
In preparation for the upcoming election, some jurisdictions, including some in Georgia, are ramping up security measures for election workers and voting locations by purchasing panic buttons for employees and hiring security guards for election offices.
Axios reported that some jurisdictions are equipping voting facilities with bulletproof glass, better security cameras and a separate exhaust system for areas where mail-in ballots will be processed.
Since the 2020 presidential election, election offices and the individuals who work at them have been targets of harassment and even death threats. The Associated Press reported that these threats mainly come from individuals who believe the false claims made by Trump that the 2020 election, which Joe Biden won, was stolen from him through widespread fraud and rigged voting machines.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
