Officers arrested a man on Wednesday for threatening to kill a user on Grindr and dozens of LGBT people at a gay club.
News came to light when suspect Me’Shach Israel-Miller spoke to the victim over social networking app Grindr, claiming he would kill him and “85 faggots at a gay club.”’
The victim posted screenshots of the conversation on Facebook, according to Columbus Division of Police in Ohio. The victim’s Facebook post went viral, prompting the CPD to investigate the threat. They arrested the 27-year-old at his home on Tuesday, charging him with inducing pain and aggravated menacing.
"The LGBT community asked that I express their appreciation for the extra resources from Zones 4 & 5 that were placed in the Short North this weekend due to the threat," said Sgt. Nick Konves, the department’s LGBT Diversity/Inclusion Liaison. He added he will reach out to the prosecutor’s office to “look at the filing of the Columbus hate crime” statute, according to the CPD.
Israel-Miller’s threat calls back to the massacre at the Pulse Nightclub, an LGBT club in Orlando – the deadliest attack against the LGBT community in the U.S. The June 11, 2016 mass shooting took the lives of 49 people and injured 53 others. At the time, it was the deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter in U.S. history, until the Las Vegas Massacre killed 58 people and injured hundreds the following year.