California man charged for death threat toward ECASD school board president

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) - A California man is charged and accused of making a death threat toward the president of the Eau Claire Area School District Board of Education.

33-year-old Jeremy Hanson of Los Alamitos, Calif. was charged with terrorist threats, a felony, in Eau Claire County Circuit Court on Wednesday, according to online court records.

According to the criminal complaint filed with the charges, Hanson sent an anonymous email to Tim Nordin, the ECASD Board of Education president, from a Gmail account named “Kill All Marxist Teachers” at 11:58 a.m. on March 21, 2022. The email said, “I am going to kill you and shoot up your next school-board meeting for promoting the radical transgender agenda. It’s now time to declare war on you pedos. I am going to kill you and your entire family.”

The email was sent to Nordin’s school email, and ECASD’s IT staff worked with the Eau Claire Police Department to find the IP address of the device the email was sent from. Investigators learned the IP address originated in Los Alamitos, Calif. and that the message appeared to have been sent from a PlayStation 4. Detectives reached out to the internet service provider, Spectrum, to get more information about the account holder. The Orange County (Calif.) Sheriff’s Department then contacted the account holder, who identified herself as the mother of Hanson and confirmed that they owned a PlayStation 4.

Investigators were told that Hanson leans “very far right politically,” according to court documents, and has open cases with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for making similar threats in other places. Hanson’s mother said that Hanson is on the autism spectrum.

In a statement after receiving the threat, Nordin said that threats and violence against others is unacceptable, and said “to threaten my wife and children, my board colleagues, the staff of our schools, and, indeed, anyone in our community who would come to a school board meeting, angers me to my very core.” A school board meeting on the day the threat was made had three police officers present as a precaution.

Nordin was re-elected to the district’s board of education along with fellow incumbent Marquell Johnson and newcomer Stephanie Farrar in April’s Spring Election.

If convicted, Hanson faces a maximum penalty of $10,000 and a maximum sentence of three and a half years in prison.