Man charged with making death threats over Trump editorials
BOSTON » A Los Angeles man upset about The Boston Globe’s coordinated editorial response to President Donald Trump’s attacks on the news media was arrested Thursday for threatening to kill the newspaper’s journalists, whom he called the “enemy of the people,” federal prosecutors said.
Robert Chain’s threatening phone calls to the Globe’s newsroom started immediately after the Globe appealed to newspapers across the country to condemn what it called a “dirty war against the free press,” prosecutors said.
The day the editorials were published , Chain, 68, of the Encino section of LA, told a Globe staffer that he was going to shoot employees in the head at 4 o’clock, according to court documents. That threat prompted a police response and increased security at the newspaper’s offices.
After the editorials ran, Chain said he would continue threatening the Globe until it stops its “treasonous and seditious” attacks on Trump, according to a court complaint.
Several times, he called Globe employees the “enemy of the people,” a characterization of journalists that Trump has used in the past.
Records show Chain owns several guns, including a 9mm carbine rifle he bought in May, authorities said.
It was not immediately clear if Chain has an attorney. Phone messages left at his wife’s law office and with person listed as a relative didn’t immediately return a phone messages.
A neighbor who lived across the street from Chain and only knew him as “Rob” said he had a bombastic personality and could frequently be heard yelling at his television.
Tim McGowan said he knew nothing of Chain’s political leanings but assumed he was an old hippie because he wore his hair in a man bun and frequently walked around in just shorts with his big belly protruding.