A man who claimed to be a “friend” of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect Robert Bowers was arrested after making disturbing statements about the shooting, the Washington Post reported.
Jeffrey Clark Jr., 30, was charged with illegally possessing a firearm and a magazine intended for use with AR-15 assault weapons, after family members reported him making disturbing statements following the suicide of his brother Edward, 23, shortly after the shooting in Pittsburgh.
According to court filings, Clark told relatives after the suicide that he believed he was friends with Bowers on social media platform Gab, where he went by “DC Bowl Gang” and Edward had gone by “DC_Stormer.” He had posted a description of himself as a “Meth-Smoking, Pipe bomb making, mailman-murding [sic] . . . Che Guevara of the altright.”
The court filings also said that he had posted a picture of Bowers spattered in blood with the description: “This was a dry run for things to come.”
Clark had called Bowers a “hero,” and said the synagogue victims “deserved exactly what happened to them,” the filings said. They also said that Clark had told the FBI that he and his brother had fantasized about killing “Jews and blacks.”
Clark, a resident of Washington DC, made his initial court appearance in the US District Court in Washington on Tuesday, and was ordered held until Friday.