Giants Fan Arrested over Threat on Patriots' Gillette Stadium
Underscoring the extent to which authorities no longer regard online threats as merely the passionate but harmless venting of inflamed emotions, a Rhode Island man has been arrested after a Facebook rant against the New England Patriots.
Tobias Gray of East Providence was arrested Sunday after allegedly making a threat against the NFL team’s home field of Gillette Stadium over the Patriots’ acquisition of the very talented and even more controversial Antonio Brown, WBZ-TV in Boston reported.
“I’m going to pull a white boys school shooting at Foxboro you might as well hand them the ring right now I’m if I ever get my hands on a gun which I don’t have one yet but I’m looking I will go shoot up random people at Foxboro,” Gray is accused of saying online in a since-deleted post.
Brown was released by the Oakland Raiders after he was fined for various antics that reportedly included threatening the team’s general manager and calling him a “cracker.” Many NFL fans were upset when the wide receiver soon had a deal to join the Super Bowl champion Patriots.
Gray’s attorney tried to pass off the Facebook comment as the way fans talk when they get overheated.
“He just really didn’t get into why, he’s a Giants fan apparently. He was not happy about it as I can see online many, many fans of many other football teams were not happy about it,” Stefanie DiMaio Larivee said.
“Just like everybody else, he was reacting as a fan,” she said, according to the Providence Journal. “His opinion. Nothing that was said was ever meant to be in any seriousness.”
Some who knew Gray also downplayed the danger of what he posted, WBTS-TV in Boston reported.
“Everybody writes stuff like that on Facebook every day. I write crazy stuff myself,” Dennis Northup said. “I don’t see that as a threat. He didn’t commit the crime, they didn’t find no guns in his house, no bombs.”
When asked if the post went too far, acquaintance Kelly Fanning offered her opinion.
“In this day and age? No,” she said. “I don’t think he meant anything by his actions.”
Tobias Gray’s lawyer told us he was surprised he was arrested after made a Facebook post about the @Patriots signing Antonio Brown. But Foxboro Police tell us those threats were “terroristic” in nature.
More details coming up live at 5 on @wpri12. pic.twitter.com/9nmItE9c2w
— Alexandra Leslie (@AlexandraLeslie) September 9, 2019
Gray has more issues to deal with than just one Facebook post. He also faces a felony domestic assault charge and a charge of threatening police officers at the time of his arrest.
He was arraigned on those charges Monday in Rhode Island. At his arraignment, he wore a New York Giants jersey.
Gray waived extradition to Massachusetts, where he will be charged with threatening to commit a crime and uttering a terroristic threat.
He is accused of telling a police officer, “I am going to find you, and watch what happens.”
After a profanity-laced rant, Gray allegedly also told the officer, “I will give your kid short-term memory loss. You’d better watch your back, watch when I find you, No. 87. Watch what happens. … I’m going to make it my life mission to find you and your kid.
“You’re going to wish you never met me.”
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
