Florida man charged with threatening NAACP, former President Obama
A Florida man has been arrested on a federal charge after allegedly making dozens of calls to the NAACP, including threats to kill the civil rights organization’s president and chief executive officer and shoot former President Barack Obama, according to prosecutors.
Jeremiah James Schwier, 47, of Dunnellon in central Florida, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with interstate transmission of a threat to injure. He remains detained pending the case.
The NAACP, formally the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is one of the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organizations.
Between April and May, the NAACP received about 60 calls from four phone numbers later linked to Schwier. The calls were sexual in nature and used inflammatory language, according to a criminal complaint.
On May 20, a caller with a similar voice told NAACP staff that he would walk into its office with an “AK 57, or whatever you call those things.” The threat caused the organization to evacuate three national offices, two in Baltimore and one in Washington, D.C.
The NAACP received 14 additional calls in August from a blocked number. The caller threatened to shoot Obama and the former first lady, as well as shoot, murder and mutilate the NAACP’s president and CEO.
Investigators said phone records tied all four earlier numbers to Schwier and showed that he made numerous calls to the specific NAACP number that received the threats.
Schwier faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
