A man arrested last week with weapons in former President Barack Obama’s Washington, DC, neighborhood began live-streaming in the area shortly after resharing a social media post from Donald Trump in which the former president posted what he claimed was Obama’s address, according to federal prosecutors.
The prosecutors included the details in a detention memo filed Wednesday, urging a federal magistrate judge in DC District Court to keep the defendant, Taylor Taranto, detained pending his trial for charges related to the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack. Taranto has not yet been charged in connection with last week’s incident.
They said in the filing that Taranto also made threats against House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin. Earlier in June, Taranto and several others entered an elementary school near Raskin’s home, with Taranto live-streaming the group “walking around the school, entering the gymnasium, and using a projector to display a film related to January 6,” according to the filing.
Taranto stated that he specifically chose the elementary school due to its proximity to Raskin’s home and that he is targeting Raskin because “he’s one of the guys that hates January 6 people, or more like Trump supporters, and it’s kind of like sending a shockwave through him because I did nothing wrong and he’s probably freaking out and saying s*** like, ‘Well he’s stalking me,’” the filing said.
“Taranto further comments, ‘I didn’t tell anyone where he lives ‘cause I want him all to myself,’ and ‘That was Piney Branch Elementary School in Maryland…right next to where Rep. Raskin and his wife live,’” the memo said.
“Taranto is a direct and serious threat to the public,” prosecutors told the judge in their filing. “Taranto’s own words and actions demonstrate that he is a direct…
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