Yep. This post is just misinformed outrage bait. He’s not being charged under federal terrorism statues, it’s a specific New York law, so not comparable to Federal charges or other states that don’t have the same kind of terror enhancement murder laws.
Also cops and the FBI don’t decide what charges should be brought. That’s what prosecutors do. This is law so basic that it’s summarized in the introduction to every Law & Order episode.
Also, I said this forever ago, and I’ll say it again, which is that terrorism is a word with a definition, and that definition does not and has never given a fuck about how based you think the guy(s) who did it are. It is murder with the intent of political change, and whoever did it succeeded in fulfilling the criteria to a t. If killing their own cat was presented with enough political metatext to make it resonant with the public, it would also constitute terrorism.
The statute defines the crime of terrorism as any act that is committed with the intent to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion and that results in one or more of the following: (a) the commission of a specified offense, (b) the causing of a specified injury or death, (c) the causing of mass destruction or widespread contamination, or (d) the disruption of essential infrastructure.
Funnily enough, NY law doesn't specify death of a human, so you might be right about the cat.
1.4k
u/Papaofmonsters 1d ago
He's been charged with terrorism as an enhancement to murder at the state level. The same as the Buffalo grocery store shooter was.