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In an era of sharp-edged attacks on journalists by critics of various types, including a hyperactive White House tweeter, news professionals are uneasy -- to put it mildly -- about email and phone threats.
The FBI and Justice Department also take them seriously, a Thursday arrest in Ann Arbor shows.
Mark Hicks of The Detroit News reports on a case that hits frighteningly close to home:
Federal authorities have charged a Michigan man with sending threatening, anti-Semitic and sexually violent messages to Detroit journalists and an elected official.
The FBI has been investigating reports that Lawrence Steven Brayboy allegedly targeted workers at The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, according to an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court.
Retired News columnist Laura Berman and current News editorial page editor Nolan Finley are among at least 12 people who were harassed.
Brayboy, 69, is held without bond for a detention hearing Monday at federal court in Detroit. He told Magistrate Judge Mona K. Majzoub at an appearance Thursday that he's "the Rosa Parks of 9/11 truth," Hicks writes.
The suspect is a former Bloomfield Hills resident, according to a public database checked by Deadline Detroit, and studied TV and radio in 1980 at the Specs Howard School of Broadcast Arts in Southfield.
His LinkedIn page says Brayboy is chief information officer at a company he identifies as Infocite, which supposedly does "document retrieval . . . legal research . . . historical research." The firm has no website, state licence or business directory listing.
That self-posted bio says the accused harasser taught history as an adjunct instructor at three Metro Detroit colleges -- Schoolcraft, Macomb Community and Wayne County Community -- after graduating from De La Salle Collegiate High, an all-male Catholic school in Warren, and from Wayne State and Eastern Michigan universities. He claims to have a master's degree in history, as well as one in library and information science.
Majzoub held him without bond after a presentation of evidence that includes these chilling descriptions:
- A newspaper writer got at least 65 voicemails from the suspect over 12 months, including this year. Nearly each "contained sexually violent threats and/or sexually vulgar language directed toward" him, his wife or mother, an FBI filing says.
- Another voicemail recipient was threatened with torture and called a "dirty little [expletive] child-molesting, mass-murdering psychopath."
- A former writer got roughly 10 emails daily over a decade, plus recent voicemails mentioning a sex act with his children. Phone harassment followed him to new offices this year.
"Journalists get used to a certain degree of badgering, ill-will, even threats. We're glad the feds took these complaints seriously. We can't afford not to," News managing editor Gary Miles posts Friday on Facebook.
Kelley Root, an assistant managing editor at The News, also reacts at that social platform:
"Very thankful the FBI took action on these vile threats against our colleagues at The News and Free Press.
"Scary is the only word for it."
-- Alan Stamm
