20 | MARCH 9 • 2023 

T

he FBI coordinated with local 
authorities in mid-February to 
arrest a heavily armed man who 
had threatened on social media to kill 
all Jewish elected officials in Michigan, 
according to a recently unsealed criminal 
case. 
The man appears to have been a 
former employee of the University of 
Michigan.
Jack Eugene Carpenter III, a resident 
of Tipton, Michigan, had tweeted on 
Feb. 17 that he was “heading back to 
Michigan now threatening to carry out 
the punishment of death to anyone that 
is Jewish in the Michigan govt if they 
don’t leave, or confess,” according to the 
FBI’s affidavit. 

There are several prom-
inent Jewish elected offi-
cials in the state, including 
Attorney General Dana 
Nessel, U.S. Rep. Elissa 
Slotkin and a handful of 
state senators and represen-
tatives.
In a tweet March 2, Nessel 
said the FBI had confirmed she was one 
of Carpenter’s targets, and added, “It is 
my sincere hope that the federal author-
ities take this offense just as seriously as 
my Hate Crimes & Domestic Terrorism 
Unit takes plots to murder elected offi-
cials.”
Carpenter has been charged with 
transmitting an interstate threat, for 

which he could receive up to five years in 
federal prison, and is being held without 
bail in a federal court in Detroit, accord-
ing to local reports. He was in Texas 
when he made the tweets, the FBI said.
On a Twitter account the FBI linked 
to Carpenter, he claimed to be a former 
employee of the University of Michigan 
who “was fired for refusing to take 
experimental medication,” apparently 
referring to the COVID-19 vaccine. The 
University of Michigan has more than 
6,500 Jewish students, according to Hillel 
International.
“Probable cause exists that” 
Carpenter’s Twitter account “made 
threats to cause injury and death to 
Jewish members of the Michigan gov-
ernment,” FBI Special Agent Sean Nicol 
wrote in the Feb. 18 affidavit.
This is the latest antisemitic threat 
to emerge in the state of Michigan. In 
December, a man in suburban Detroit 

FBI Makes Arrest

Feds arrest Michigan man who plotted to kill 
Jewish elected officials in the state.

Entrance to the 
FBI Building in 
Washington, D.C.

DRNADIG VIA GETTY IMAGES

ANDREW LAPIN JTA

Dana 
Nessel

OUR COMMUNITY

