Springs Man Tells Judge He's Remorseful For Threats Against Police
DENVER (CBS4) - A Colorado Springs man and former military service member who is accused of making violent threats against police made his first court appearance on Tuesday.
Jeremiah Perez, 33, faces one criminal count for posting online threats in which he talked about killing police officers.
Google tipped off the FBI in San Francisco to report it discovered a threat on a YouTube video. The link to the video has been removed, but agents tracked the post to a Century Link account in Colorado Springs at Perez's home.
According to a criminal complaint, Perez's online posts referenced the decision by a grand jury to not indict Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson for the death of Michael Brown in August.
The post stated in part, "Since Darren Wilson, our group has killed 6 retired sheriffs and cops.....because of this event we will hunt two more in Colorado this week....for every innocent citizen that cops kill we, veterans will kill retired helpless cops."
An investigation of Perez's computer revealed key word searches that included: "kill sarah palin," "kill barack obama," "kill cory gardner" and "google maps for fox news headquarters."
In court, Perez accepted responsibility for the searches and postings but claimed he never intended to follow through on any violence.
He told the judge he knew what he was doing was wrong and expressed remorse for making the threats.
Perez is scheduled for court again next week. He faces up to five years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.
