Man charged with threatening governor

Comments posted on Lujan Grisham’s Facebook page

An Albuquerque man accused of threatening Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham online has been arrested and charged with two counts of “interstate communication threats.”

Daniel Logan Mock, 33, was arrested Tuesday and made his first appearance Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, according to online court records.

FBI Special Agent Stacey Stout wrote in a criminal complaint that Mock — an employee at a medical cannabis dispensary — wrote threatening comments on the governor’s Facebook page March 13, the day she announced massive school closures and a ban on large gatherings in response to the threat of the COVID-19 virus.

One comment read: “Time to pick up your rifles and kill this governor so we can reestablish the constitution as law of New Mexico. I’m done with corrupt government. They will serve the people or die,” according to the complaint.

Another, posted on the same day, read: “I am going to begin red flagging myself in order to combat and kill all police and government officials who are in violation of the constitution. All officers who responded will be executed for Tyranny. So ask yourself

is violating my rights worth your life? Cause I have no fear of killing bad men and dying for the people.”

Mock also posted on Lujan Grisham’s Facebook page March 2, according to the complaint. He wrote, “There is never going to be a case. Focus your energy on more important things like tickets for the police who violated traffic and parking laws. This is why we are going to execute you.”

According to the complaint, Mock came to the FBI’s attention last year after an investigator at the Suffolk County Police Department in New York notified the agency that Mock had posted “threatening comments and antigovernment/antiauthority ideology on the Oath Keepers Facebook page praising a gunman who was killed by police after opening fire with an assault weapon outside the Earle Cabell Federal Courthouse in Dallas in June.

According to the group’s website, Oath Keepers is a collection of “current and formerly serving military, police, and first responders, who pledge to fulfill the oath all military and police take to ‘defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.’ ”

Online court records show Mock pleaded no contest to a charge of possession of a controlled substance in Otero County Magistrate Court in April and was sentenced to 90 days unsupervised probation.

Mock’s girlfriend told the FBI that Mock “does not mean to threaten anyone with his rhetoric and was ‘blowing off steam,’ ” according to the complaint.

The Governor’s Office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.