Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira made violent threats online and collected a ‘virtual arsenal’ of weapons, prosecutors said on Thursday (Pictures: Reuters/AP)
The Massachusetts National Guardsman suspected of leaking classified intelligence online kept an ‘arsenal’ of weapons, prosecutors said on Thursday.
US Magistrate Judge David Hennessy declined to make a ruling at a pretrial detention hearing for accused leaker Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.
Teixeira was arrested by the FBI on April 13. He was charged with removing and retaining classified documents.
Prosecutors argued that Teixeira not only posed a flight risk, but also was a danger to the community due to his history of violent statements on social media and the ‘virtual arsenal’ of weapons he spent years acquiring.
The Justice Department included a photo of Jack Teixeira’s military-themed room at his father’s house in Massachusetts in their filing (Picture: AP)
Those weapons, according to a prosecutors, include ‘bolt-action rifles, rifles, AR- and AK-style weapons, and a bazooka.’
Additionally, prosecutors noted that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) did not seize his father’s weapons, and Teixeira’s defense attorneys are asking that he be released to his father’s home.
Additionally, prosecutors pointed to Teixeira’s ‘troubling’ conduct online, and said he ‘regularly made comments about violence and murder.’
The history of violent comments started in 2018, when Teixeira was still a student in high school. In March of that year, he was suspended when classmates overheard him talking about ‘Molotov cocktails, guns at the school, and racial threats.’
A courtroom sketch artist depicts Teixeira’s first hearing at a Massachusetts federal court (Picture: AP)
Although Teixeira says the comments in high school were about a video game, the suspension still caused him to be denied a firearms identification card by his local police station.
The court filing also pointed out a number of violent social media posts, including a November 2022 statement where Teixeira said he wanted to ‘kill a [expletive] ton of people’ because it would be ‘culling the weak minded.’
In February 2023, Teixeira asked for advice from another social media user about the best type of rifle to operate from the back of an SUV, which he wanted use in a ‘crowded urban or suburban environment.’
That same month, he said he was thinking about converting a minivan into an ‘assassination van.’
According to investigators, Teixeira also researched other mass shootings. In July 2022 Teixeira used his government computer to search for the terms: ‘Ruby Ridge,’ ‘Las Vegas Shooting,’ ‘Mandalay Bay shooting,’ ‘Buffalo Tops shooting,’ and ‘Uvalde.’
Additionally, prosecutors said they were afraid that Teixeira would still have access to classified documents if he were released.
‘He accessed and may still have access to a trove of classified information that would be tremendous value to hostile nation states that could offer him safe harbor and attempt to facilitate his escape from the United States,’ prosecutors wrote in the filing.
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Prosecutors say Jack Teixeira collected a ‘virtual arsenal’ of weapons and made violent threats online.