Online rant tantamount to death threat: judge

The expletive-laced tirade a Calgary man posted on Youtube declaring war on police amounted to death threats, a judge ruled Monday.

Provincial court Judge Mike Dinkel said the nearly four-minute long video Joel Jeremy Dupuis posted publicly was more than a digital diary entry. Dinkel accepted Dupuis’ testimony he didn’t think his rant was threatening, but found that the content was.

“I must look at the words from a reasonable person’s point of view and not your point of view,” Dinkel told Dupuis. “The accused, Mr. Dupuis, was angry about being put out of his house. He was living in his car in cold weather.”

Dupuis, 43, was the subject of an emergency protection order, which meant he couldn’t live with his father in his northwest Calgary home when he posted his comments on Jan. 30, 2019.

Dupuis testified the temperature at the time was -37 C.

“They can only be seen in their totality as a threat ... or an attempt at intimidation,” Dinkel said, in agreeing with Crown prosecutor Donna Spaner that Dupuis’ conduct was criminal in nature.

In the video — which followed a series of comments on Twitter, including a post that said: “War wages on in Calgary Alberta, kill all Calgary police” — Dupuis made a call to viewers to “lay ... down” anyone in a uniform in Canada.

“Just so y’all know, this is not murder, this is war and there’s a time when it’s okay to (expletive) kill and it is now.”

Police looked into Dupuis’ video after concerns were raised by members of the public.

Dinkel handed Dupuis a sixmonth jail term, which he’s already served, and placed him on probation for two years with a condition he has no social media contact with the Calgary Police Service.