US Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee Kevin G. Ritz announced on Friday that a man was charged with making threats against President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama on social media.
Ritz’s office said that Kyl Alton Hall made various threats on X, formerly known as Twitter, on July 27. The office stated that Hall specifically “threatened to kill, assassinate, shoot, and crash the plane of President Biden” as well as assassinate Vice President Harris and former President Obama.
Hall was charged with two counts of making threats against a current president and vice president under 18 USC §871(a) and one count of threatening a former president under 18 USC §879(a)(1). He faces up to 15 years in prison.
Hall’s parents said that he “has struggled with mental health issues his whole life, but recently became ‘bizarre.” His mother also stated that she believes he is “schizophrenic, hearing voices from Biden and Obama.” The parents added that they will not bail him out of jail over fears that he will “snap” again.
The charges against Hall came just after the closing of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, where all three politicians spoke ahead of the presidential election in November. Vice President Harris accepted the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night, about one month after President Biden announced he was ending his presidential campaign.
There have been multiple threats in recent months against politicians and election officials as the country prepares for the November election. In July, an Alabama man pleaded guilty to sending threatening messages to election workers in Arizona, and a Kentucky man pleaded guilty to shooting at the mayor of Louisville earlier that month.
On Thursday, an Arizona man was arrested after threatening on social media to kill former President Donald Trump. The former president was previously shot in the ear during a July campaign rally, with the assassination attempt leaving one spectator dead.