Justin Olsen Arrested For Threatening Law Enforcement After Posting Support For Mass Shootings

A man in Ohio was charged by federal prosecutors on Monday after a police investigation showed that he had made posts online that supported mass shootings and attacking law enforcement, according to Cleveland.com.

Police said that Justin Olsen of Boardman, Ohio, lived in a home with reportedly more than two dozen guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition, according to Cleveland.com. Olsen is charged with threatening to assault a federal law enforcement officer.

Under the username “ArmyOfChrist,” the 18-year-old reportedly made posts on meme-sharing website iFunny in which he purportedly said he supported mass shootings and supported attacks on Planned Parenthood facilities. Olsen had also allegedly directed people to shoot federal officers.

Olsen reportedly told police that the posts were meant to be a joke, per Cleveland.com.

Olsen also allegedly made posts that encouraged people to break gun laws and to stock up on guns and ammunition, per Cleveland.com. He also seemed to suggest that the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that left 168 people dead was an example of violence being an effective method to encourage political change.

According to an affidavit, police subpoenaed the email address associated with the iFunny account and traced it back to Olsen. Upon entering his family’s home last week, police said they found some 300 rounds of ammunition sitting on the stairs between the first floor to the second floor of the home. Guns and other ammunition were apparently found in a bedroom in Olsen’s home, per Cleveland.com.

Olsen had also said he was accepted into an ROTC program in Alabama and later posted that he had plans to attend the University of Texas at Austin as part of an ROTC scholarship.

Boardman is about less than two hours south of Cleveland, Ohio, according to a Google Maps search.

Olsen was arrested last week and has been held in the Mahoning County Jail since his arrest, per Cleveland.com. Olsen appeared before a federal judge in Youngstown, Ohio, on Monday with preliminary hearings in the case set for the end of the week.

Police said they had been investigating the family since February but decided to act following recent mass shootings in Gilroy, California; El Paso, Texas; and in Dayton, Ohio, that left dozens dead.

In Dayton, which is a few hours west of Boardman, nine people were killed by a gunman who opened fire in a crowded area reportedly using an automatic rifle. The individuals were killed in just under 30 seconds before the shooter was killed by police, who were already patrolling the area.

That shooter killed a companion and his transgender brother in the shooting, per a report from The New York Post.

The shooter in El Paso, Texas, who killed 23 people while they were shopping at a Walmart store, had notably posted online prior to the shooting, calling the Hispanic population in El Paso an “invasion,” per The New York Times.