A 38-year-old Florida man arrested for allegedly threatening to kill Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) appears to have posted on Facebook about how he was certain the congressman and other national figures were supposedly taunting him by using the “eyeball emoji.”
A Facebook post from an account using the name Brett Coulter expressed his disgust with the “straight up ghetto people” allegedly obsessed with him—including alt-right OANN anchor Jack Posobiec, Miami Heat player Bam Adebayo and the sports site Bleacher Report along with Nehls.
The author of the post explained his grievance: that Nehls, Posobiec, and “several thousand people on the internet” were all using the emoji to “reference” him. “And encourage a movement against me to hate, slander, defame and besmirch me,” the author added.
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“I also actually got Troy Nehls’ personal cellphone number and have been calling him,” the post continued. “I do not even know who he is up until last week so I did not know he was a ‘congressman.’ Anyway, the coward told DC Police (who have national jurisdiction) and they paid me a visit!!!”
The Facebook user signaled in another post that he had been able to obtain the personal information of strangers using retrieval platforms like InfoTracer and BeenVerified.
The user also revealed that he had been “texting... harassing... threatening” Posobiec, who he referred to as “that UGLY fraud kid.” In another paragraph on the anchor, the user included a knife emoji next to the word “FRAUD.”
Brett J. Coulter appears to have been arrested for stalking several times in the past. In one court transcript—shared by the same Facebook user—a prosecutor says that Coulter has a diagnosis of schizophrenia, a record of hospitalizations, and a history of “noncompliance with medication.”
“Family members have taken out restraining orders against him,” the prosecutor adds, according to the transcript, “and they still express fear of him.”
Rep. Nehls, a former sheriff, expressed relief in a Tuesday statement announcing Coulter’s latest arrest on stalking and harassment charges.
“Mr Coulter repeatedly called and left disturbing and threatening voicemails where he threatened to kill me,” Nehls said. “After the first encounter, my office immediately notified the United States Capitol Police about the incident who took swift action… I commend the professionalism and seriousness [with] which all members of law enforcement handled the matter and am thankful Mr. Coulter has been arrested.”
Also on Wednesday, Nehls—who is heading up a GOP probe into security failures that contributed to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol—accused the Capitol Police of complicity in the insurrection. “I think the Capitol Police didn't have the National Guard here because maybe they just wanted it to happen,” he told CNN.
