On Monday, federal authorities announced the arrest of a Colorado man for allegedly lobbing death threats at election officials, judges and federal agents, largely using social media platforms known as hotbeds for right-wing extremism.
The arrest of 45-year-old Teak Brockbank is the latest in a disturbing trend of violent threats targeting election officials and other people framed as enemies by the vindictive MAGA ecosystem.
A DOJ press release summarizes the claims:
“As alleged, Teak Brockbank threatened the lives of multiple public servants on social media. Among other threats, he allegedly claimed that it was ‘time’ to put two state election officials to death and that he was obligated to ‘put a bullet’ in the head of a Colorado state judge.
An affidavit shows authorities’ concerns stemmed from statements Brockbank allegedly made via text messages and posts on two Trump-friendly social media sites: Gab and the JD Vance-backed video platform Rumble. The names of the officials targeted in the posts were sealed at the request of the government. Brockbank’s threats allegedly began in 2021, when Trump and his failed presidential campaign directed the movement’s vitriol toward the U.S. election system.
In one comment on Rumble in 2021, Brockbank allegedly called a Colorado judge a “communist,” claiming he’d be “justified” if he were to “put a bullet in this Mans head and send him to explain himself to our Creator right now.” That comment also made reference to “where we go one, we go all,” a phrase propagated by Trump-loving QAnon conspiracy theorists.
In July 2021, the same Rumble account posted that “there is no other way to fix this mess in Colorado and Arizona without executing these evil people,” going on to refer to election officials. In a Gab post from September 2021, Brockbank allegedly said that an election official “needs to- No has to Hang she has to Hang by the neck till she is Dead Dead Dead.” That same account repeated calls for hangings in “Communist Colorado,” claiming “we will have to do it ourselves!” And in August 2022, the Rumble account responded to a user who urged “taking” the country back with more death threats directed at another official. “Once those people start getting put to death then the rest will melt like snowflakes and turn on each other and we will just sit back,” the account said, adding that “those of us that have the stomach for what has to be done should prepare our minds for what we all ARE going to do!!!!!!”
The affidavit also refers to a text message Brockbank allegedly sent his stepfather in 2023: “Four judges in Colorado have removed President Trump from the ballot in Colorado” and “their names have been moved to the front of my list.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately overruled the Colorado state Supreme Court’s ruling that Trump was ineligible to appear on the state’s ballot, but not before the ruling resulted in a wave of violent right-wing threats that caught the eye of federal law enforcement.
What else should we expect from a conservative movement that continues to lionize those who engage in political violence?
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.