A Virginia man who posted several Internet threats against former BART police Officer Johannes Mehserle has been sentenced to three years in prison.
Jeffrey Weaver, 48, of Roanoke, posted three threats after Mehserle killed Oscar Grant III of Hayward in a scuffle on a BART station platform on Jan. 1.
Weaver wrote several messages threatening to kill Mehserle and other officers who have killed people, including a Virginia police officer who fatally Tased a 17-year-old boy.
In sentencing Weaver on Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Wilson imposed a harsher penalty than recommended, saying Weaver’s threats demonstrated a level of “vileness.”
Weaver admitted after his arrest in June to making the threatening remarks, saying he was “angry” when he wrote the comments on www.infowars.com, an FBI agent wrote in a report.
In the first post, Jan. 5, before Mehserle was identified as the officer who killed Grant, Weaver wrote, “(Expletive) the pigs and if I find out who the pigs is then I will kill the pig who killed him.”
The message appeared in the comments section of an article on www.infowars.com describing Grant’s killing.
Weaver also wrote another message in the same comments section minutes later. That message said:
“The best pigs are dead (expletive) pigs and if any of you Oakland or BART pigs (expletive) are reading this your
time is coming you pigs- (expletive) sooner than you think and this isn’t a threat it’s a (expletive) promise (expletive)!! I’m curious to know what it looks like up close to see pigs (expletive) get their brains splattered against a wall.”
Two days later, after Mehserle was identified as the officer who killed Grant, Weaver was accused of posting a third threat and including Mehserle’s address in the post.
The FBI learned of the threats Jan. 8 when Mehserle’s father, Todd, notified the agency’s San Francisco bureau that threats to his son’s life had been posted to the Internet and that his address was also posted, court records state.
An investigation traced the two messages to Weaver’s home computer.
Staff writer Paul T. Rosynsky and the Roanoke Times contributed to this story.
