16 | JUNE 29 • 2023
O
n Friday, June 16, the
Federal Bureau of
Investigation arrested
a 19-year-old Upper Peninsula
man with East Lansing ties
and charged him with trans-
mitting a communication
containing a threat to injure
another. He is charged with
making plans to kill people
at Congregation Shaarey
Zedek in East Lansing on
the chosen date of March 15,
2024, according to the U.S.
Attorney’s Office.
Federal officials arrested
Seann Patrick Pietila, most
recently of Pickford, and
searched his residence. There,
they found ammunition, mag-
azines, a shotgun, a rifle, a pis-
tol, knives and other firearm
accessories, along with a Nazi
flag, gas masks and military
manuals.
In a note specifying the date
of the planned attack on the
synagogue, Pietila also wrote:
“Me and Limey, Equipment:
hand-made pipe bombs,
molotovs, Two Stag-15s, 12
gauge shotgun and two back
up Glock 18s AND a Akm full
auto conversion.”
In a June 16 news release,
U.S. Attorney for the Western
District of Michigan Mark
Totten stated: “
Antisemitic
threats and violence against
our Jewish communities — or
any other group for that mat-
ter — will not be tolerated
in the Western District of
Michigan. Today and every
day we take all credible threats
seriously. I’m incredibly grate-
ful to the FBI for their swift
action to identify and arrest
Pietila.”
According to Totten, FBI
agent Ryan Roskey on June
16 filed a 44-page affidavit
complaint with the Western
Michigan District Court
against the man.
As outlined in the com-
plaint, the man is alleged
to have communicated with
others on Instagram and
evinced a neo-Nazi ideology,
antisemitism, glorification
of past mass shooters, and a
desire and intent to mimic
past mass shooters or mass
casualty events, including
the mass shooter that mur-
dered Muslims at prayer in
New Zealand in March of
2019.
In the affidavit, Roskey
stated he believes that Pietila
is in violation of section 875
of Title 18 of the United
States Code, which prohibits
the transmission in interstate
or foreign commerce, any
communication containing
any threat to kidnap any per-
son or any threat to injure
the person of another.
The affidavit said that
around June 13, the FBI
received a 210-page report
from Meta, which operates
Facebook, Instagram and
other social media platforms,
which contained threatening
communications exchanged
via online social media
messaging between some-
one using the username of
“finnishv64” and other users,
describing his plans to “com-
mit a mass casualty incident.”
It was discovered that Pietila
was finnishv64.
The affidavit included
details of these chilling
online conversations. The
man expressed the pain of
OUR COMMUNITY
Congregation Shaarey Zedek in East Lansing
FBI arrests Michigan man who threatened mass shooting
at East Lansing’s Congregation Shaarey Zedek.
Terror Threat
Thwarted
STACY GITTLEMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
LEFT TO RIGHT: Israeli Knesset member Dan Illouz, Rabbi Amy
Bigman, U.S. Attorney Mark Totten
SHARON HASSON