Man On $1M Bail After Facebook Threats
prosecutor: Weapons Found At 22-Year-Old's Home
WYNDMOOR, Pa. - A Montgomery County man who police said was plotting to shoot up Springfield Township and posted messages about it on his Facebook page is under arrest.
James Gallagher, 22, is behind bars after investigators said he posted threatening messages like, "Let's kill people" online.
And police said it wasn't just an idol threat; Gallagher was armed with high-powered rifles and ammunition.
A friend tipped off investigators, and a detective went undercover on Facebook to bust him, Fox 29's Robin Taylor reported.
That Facebook friend knew the Wyndmoor man had guns and was worried he might carry out some violent threats.
'It's not something where there was a particular individual or a particular institution. Rather, it was a threat to a community," Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Ferman said.
The detective went undercover, posing as a friend on Facebook, and said he discovered disturbing messages from late August, including white supremacist hate speech like "White Pride, World Wide" and threats of violence such as, "I will destroy Springfield no1here got guns like me."
"Those kinds of things can be very dangerous, when you have someone who just wants to go out with a big bang," Ferman said.
The D.A. said there were pictures of Gallagher holding AK-47 and AR-15 rifles on his Facebook profile.
Police said they served a warrant at the Wyndmoor home of Gallagher's parents and found semi-automatic weapons, a rifle with a scope, and 90 rounds of ammunition, along with knives and other weapons inside
"The last thing that I would want to do and the police chief would want to do is wait and not take action, and then God forbid be faced with a situation where someone has committed murder or shot at people," Ferman said.
Neighbors in the quiet Montgomery County community are shocked. They said there's no place for hate speech there, and they said they're thankful someone took the threat seriously and notified police before anyone got hurt.
"If you're a friend of someone and you see this, you need to be strong enough to report it," one neighbor said.
The prosecutor said there's a fine line between free speech and making terroristic threats. And in this case she thinks Gallagher crossed it.
The judge is also taking this case very seriously. He set bail at $1 million, Taylor reported.