March 24, 2016 at 8:10 am |
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David Joseph Lenio threatened to kill schoolchildren and Jews on his Twitter postings. His stated reasons are his, but the reality as I understand it is that he made threats and started to prepare himself to carry them out. The facts around this man are well documented by both Flathead Valley excellent newspapers. The outcome of the situation, to date, is not so clear and satisfactory.
In essence, in this serious case “the buck was passed” on to another jurisdiction at some future moment. In the bad old days, some 70 or so years ago, a serious offender was sometimes given a one-way bus ticket out of town with the admonition to never come back; sadly the perception here is that is exactly what happened.
Police Chief Nasset and the original notifier Hutson had it exactly right. Who will hang their heads in ultimate shame if this powder keg of a person explodes and takes children’s lives? Who will mourn if lives are taken, especially when proper care could have been taken to remove threats to the citizens of our country?
Chief Nasset said, “I did not want children’s blood on my hands because I didn’t do everything I could.”
Jonathan Hutson, the Maryland media consultant who brought the Twitter threats to Flathead County officials, said, “The state of Montana is reloading a man who has threatened to massacre schoolchildren and religious leaders.”
The reporting is that County Attorney Ed Corrigan declined to prosecute Lenio when District Court Judge Heidi J. Ulbricht dismissed count one of the indictment because she considered the underlying Montana Law to be unconstitutional. Really? When does this judge gets to make that assertion without working with Corrigan and to have that decision taken to the Montana Supreme Court? Where does Corrigan show that he has upheld his oath of office and to have a zealous duty to uphold the laws of Montana and the USA? He should have taken Ulbricht’s ruling, immediately, to the Montana Supreme Court. He did not do that.
Despite the actions of Ulbricht and Corrigan, I am more than certain that the FBI has placed Lenio on their serious watch list, and if and when he explodes and acts out his fantasies, the police may or may not be able to stop him in time.
I would consider the quotation of President Dwight D. Eisenhower as being very valid in this situation for the next election period. “Some politician some years ago said that bad officials are elected by good voters who do not vote.”
—Jerrold A. “Jerry” Weissman, Great Falls
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