Colorado man charged with threatening to kill election officials and judges
By Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN
(CNN) — Federal prosecutors have charged a Colorado man with threatening to kill election officials and a local judge, the Justice Department announced Monday.
Federal prosecutors say 45-year-old Teak Brockbank repeatedly posted violent messages targeting officials in Colorado and Arizona. Those threats, prosecutors allege, included accusations that the officials committed “treason,” calls to “execute these people,” and outbursts against judges who ruled against former President Donald Trump in an election-related case.
Brockbank has been charged with transmitting interstate threats, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. A lawyer for Brockbank is not yet listed, and he is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court on Monday.
The Justice Department has repeatedly expressed concerns about the skyrocketing level of threats against public officials, particularly those against election officials and members of the judiciary.
“We allege that the defendant made detailed death threats against election officials, judges, and law enforcement officers,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a Monday news release. “Violent threats against public servants are a danger to our democracy, and the arrest and charges announced today make clear that the Justice Department will see to it that perpetrators answer for their actions.”
In social media posts from 2021 and 2022 highlighted by prosecutors, Brockbank repeatedly threatened violence against local Colorado officials. In one post, Brockbank wrote of a local judge, “I could pick up my rifle and I could go put a bullet in this Mans head and send him to explain himself to our Creator right now. I would be Justified!!!”
Brockbank also allegedly wrote that he would be “completely justified” to start shooting at federal law enforcement should they come to his home, and encouraged “the American people to take matters into their own hands start eliminating those that we know are guilty” of purported election fraud in Colorado.
The names of the election and law enforcement officials who were the subject of the threats are redacted in court filings.
The threats continued into late 2023, prosecutors said, when Brockbank allegedly texted his stepfather that “Four judges in Colorado have removed President Trump from the ballot in Colorado. their names have been added to my list…” That text appears to be in reference to decisions in Colorado state court to kick Trump off the ballot in the state over his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection – rulings that were ultimately overturned by the US Supreme Court.
Investigators were also concerned about Brockbank’s “lengthy history of illegally possessing firearms,” court documents say, and by a November 2023 text to an associate in which Brockbank wrote, “I do not go anywhere without a firearm.”
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