The FBI arrested an Indiana man who promised to “kill every Jew” in Fort Wayne last year, JTA reports, leaving local Jewish leaders to question why they were not alerted to the threat sooner.
The suspect, 41-year-old Jeffrey Stevens, who was arrested on Tuesday, admitted in interviews that he had posted violent antisemitic threats directly to the website of the CIA, as well as in a Facebook direct message to the Fort Wayne Police Department, according to a newly released affidavit.
Stevens also wrote to the CIA, “I am going to shoot every pro-Israel US government official in the head,” and boasted of having “strong Palestinian, Hezbollah, and Iranian contacts.”
He is charged with communicating a threat in interstate commerce and faces a maximum of five years in prison, JTA reported.
Stevens told officials he had a “drinking problem,” according to the affidavit. He wrote the posts, including one reading “Death to the Zionist,” following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, but also posted some Israel-related material from other social media accounts prior to that.
As news of the arrest emerged, Jewish leaders wondered why they had not been warned of Stevens’ intentions, despite the fact that he sent his threats directly to law enforcement months ago.
“We only found out about this two days ago and the whole incident occurred in November,” Jaki Schreier, executive director of the local Jewish federation, told JTA in an email, adding, “We are NOT HAPPY to say the least.”
News of the arrest comes amid a sharp increase in antisemitism in the US in the wake of the Hamas October 7 attack and the war in Gaza which ensued.
The Indiana House of Representatives last month unanimously approved a new bill which defines antisemitism as religious discrimination in the state education code.
Advocates for the bill said instances of antisemitism have increased at college campuses in Indiana since the October 7 attack.
According to data published in December, there has been a 700% increase in the number of antisemitic incidents against Jewish students on US campuses since October 7.