A Trump-supporting Florida sheriff’s deputy who threatened to kill federal officers and called for ‘the streets of D.C. to run red with the blood of the tyrants has been arrested, the Sheriff’s office announced on Wednesday.
Peter Heneen, 29-year-old, is facing charges for written threats to kill, do bodily injury, conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism, Polk County Sheriff’s Office said.
He has been accused of sending ‘threatening’ text messages to a colleague on the night of 6 January in the hours after the riots and violence at the US Capitol.
‘Need to make the streets of D.C. run red with the blood of the tyrants,’ Heneen said of members of Congress, according to Sheriff Grady Judd. ‘Should have to drug those tyrants into the streets and executed them.’
Heneen has also been suspended pending termination from the sheriff’s office, with Judd saying an investigation into his messages revealed ‘absolutely frightening things.’
Judd said Heneen sent a message to another deputy, to whom he wrote things like ‘f*** the feds,’ ‘Shoot the feds,’ ‘I’ll f****** kill them all,’ and ‘take the fight to them.’
He also sent texts to his colleague where he threatened to ‘slit the throats’ of federal officials, and questioned the shooting of one of the rioters by a Capitol police officer, saying ”You shot someone for what, climbing into a building? You need to shoot the f— back. F– the feds, shoot the feds.’
The Sheriff said a lot of what his deputy said was ‘hate talk’, but some of it ventured into illegal threats of violence in multiple instances.
‘As you can see, I am angry beyond words,’ the sheriff said during a press conference on Wednesday when announcing the charges, before adding that he was ‘super proud’ of the deputy who received the messages, who reported them.
‘The good news is, one of our deputies did the right thing,’ Judd said. ‘Gave information of a written threat by one of his colleagues.’
‘Our deputy that reported this is a hero. I tell my deputies that doing what’s right is not always easy but it is always right. He stood in the face of not only one of his colleagues but one of his friends.’
Heneen was arrested following an investigation into the messages and charged with a second-degree felony of making threats.
‘Having him arrested was important,’ Judd said. ‘Having him arrested before inauguration day was even more important.’
The deputy that reported Heneen has returned to work at the Sheriff’s office.
‘You issue a written threat, you’re gonna get locked up too,’ Judd said.
‘No matter who you are. Because we are going to ensure the safety and security of this community and quite frankly, it’s time for this entire nation to take a deep breath, and to calm down.’
Judd added that Heneen had passed the rigorous background checks, which include a psychological evaluation and a polygraph test, that all employees and staff of the sheriff’s office are required to go through.
The sheriff said that Heneen was not known to be a member of any militias, adding that ‘there was no real history on him,’ with the deputy’s past conduct violations limited to an on-duty crash and defying a superior who told him to shine his shoes.
Judd took the opportunity to condemn the actions of pro-Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol building on 6 January calling it an illegal entry and calling it ‘wrong, wrong, wrong.’
‘Words matter,’ Judd said. ‘Threatening words to hurt to kill are just not acceptable. The community deserves a safe, secure environment where we can prosper. But if we can’t police ourselves first, we can’t police the community.’
Lawmakers were forced to go into hiding for several hours as Capitol police grappled to take back control while the mob rioted in the Senate and House, invaded Nancy Pelosi’s office and looted items potentially including state secrets.
One female Trump supporter, US Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, was shot dead by Capitol Police as she tried to climb through a window.
Three other Trump supporters died after ‘medical emergencies’ related to the breach and Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick died the following day from injuries sustained in the attack after the thug allegedly hit him over the head with a fire extinguisher.
Many people have already been arrested and prosecutors across the US have vowed to bring to justice those who stormed the US Capitol, sending lawmakers into hiding as they began their work to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
The group included white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and QAnon conspiracy theorists, coming from states as far-flung as Arizona and Oregon, while photographs from the riot have shown people wearing clothes with a range of antisemitic messages.
Trump has become the only president to be twice impeached and the first to be prosecuted as he leaves the White House, an ever-more-extraordinary end to his tenure.
A precedent set by the Senate in the 1800s established that a trial can proceed even after a federal official leaves office. Trump was first impeached by the House in 2019 over his dealings with Ukraine, but the Senate voted last year to acquit.
Ten Republicans joined all Democrats in the 232-197 impeachment vote on Wednesday, the most bipartisan modern presidential impeachment.
When his second trial does begin, House impeachment managers say they will be making the case that Trump’s incendiary rhetoric hours before the attack on the Capitol was not isolated, but directly intended to interrupt the electoral count as part of his escalating campaign to overturn the November election.
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