A 13-year-old boy was arrested and charged for allegedly plotting a mass shooting targeting Jews at a synagogue in Canton, Ohio, according to court documents obtained by local news outlets.
The alleged threat was first reported to the Stark County Sheriff’s Office on September 1 after the teenage boy allegedly posted his plans to carry out a mass shooting at the Temple Israel on the online chat platform Discord, the court documents showed. The suspect, whose name was not published due to his age, is charged with inducing panic and disorderly conduct, which are both misdemeanors, and he will appear in Stark County Family Court on Wednesday, December 20, WKYC reported.
“(Name redacted) did create a detailed plan to complete a mass shooting at the Temple Israel on the Discord platform which was reported to law enforcement and required an immediate investigatory response and notification of public individuals and agencies including the school system in which caused significant public alarm within those agencies,” the court documents state.
The Stark County Sheriff’s Office is continuing its investigation into the alleged plans of the teenager. The Anti-Defamation League Cleveland thanked law enforcement officials for their work on the case, saying it is “horrified” by the alleged plans of the teenager to target Jews.
Reports of anti-Semitic hate crimes have skyrocketed in the U.S. and other Western countries after Hamas carried out a brutal attack on Israel on October 7, killing at least 1,200 people and kidnapping hundreds of others.
FBI Director Chris Wray warned in late October of anti-Semitism in the U.S. reaching “historic levels,” saying that 60% of all religious hate crimes in the country are targeting Jewish people.
“The Jewish community is targeted by terrorists really across the spectrum,” Wray testified before a Senate panel, adding, “This is not a time for panic, but it is a time for vigilance. We shouldn’t stop conducting our daily lives – going to schools, houses of worship, and so forth – but we should be vigilant.”
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Last week, authorities responded to another apparent targeting of Jews when a man allegedly fired two shots from a shotgun outside of a New York synagogue while children were in the building for preschool. The suspect in the shooting is a U.S. citizen who was born in Iraq and allegedly said “events in the Middle East have impacted him.”