A Donald Trump supporter from Rhode Island allegedly threatened to kill and eat a college professor and “eradicate” Democrats, according to federal officials.
Matthew Haviland, a 30-year-old resident of North Kingstown, threatened to murder and eat the professor in a series of March 10 emails, according to prosecutors. Haviland was arrested on Wednesday after an FBI investigation, and faces federal cyberstalking and threat charges.
In emails to the professor, who has publicly advocated for abortion rights, Haviland allegedly threatened to “rip every limb from your body and eat it, piece by piece” and “savor” the teacher’s “innards.”
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“You will have your face ripped off and eaten by me, personally,” Haviland wrote in another email to the professor, whose name and affiliation were not revealed by the feds.
Haviland threatened Democrats in other emails, saying that people wearing “pink fucking hats”—an apparent reference to the “Pussy Hats” worn by Women’s March participants—“should all be slaughtered,” according to his indictment. He also allegedly wrote that all Democrats “must be eradicated.”
“I will kill every Democrat in the world so we never more have to have our babies brutally murdered by you absolute terrorists,” Haviland wrote, according to prosecutors.
Haviland’s attorney declined to comment.
In a separate series of emails to a department at the university, Haviland allegedly said the school should be bombed, calling for “another Civil War.”
A friend of Haviland’s told law enforcement that his political views had recently become “more extreme,” according to the FBI affidavit, because he was angry over media coverage of Trump.
“[Haviland’s friend] believes this is at least in part because of the way the news media portrays President Trump,” the affidavit noted.
Additionally, Haviland made more than 100 threatening calls to a Rhode Island abortion clinic, officials said. He admitted to law-enforcement officials that he made those calls, court filings showed.
Haviland also made threats and promoted his political views in YouTube videos and posts to the publishing platform Medium, according to law enforcement.
In his online videos, Haviland accused Democrats of being “soulless” and “slavemasters.” He also accused members of the media of being “monsters” and spreading “cultural Marxism,” a far-right talking point that holds that reporters and academics subscribe to a philosophy trying to undermine the United States.
On his YouTube channel, Haviland praised a number of right-wing media personalities. He encouraged his handful of viewers to check out specific videos from conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, former Pizzagate promoter Mike Cernovich, and cartoonist Scott Adams, the Dilbert comic-strip creator who has reinvented himself as a vociferous Trump booster.
Haviland also used YouTube to praise Trump, saying the president does “good things,” and accusing reporters of being out to destroy his presidency. In one video, taken just days before his arrest, Haviland screamed into the camera about the prospect of Special Counsel Robert Mueller testifying before Congress, shouting that Trump “did nothing fucking wrong.”
The Daily Beast was able to connect Haviland to the YouTube account, “Democrats Dehumanize Developing Humans,” because it used an identical screen name to one mentioned in court records. The man in the YouTube videos also exactly matched a profile picture from a Medium account tied to Haviland, which law-enforcement officials identified as Haviland.
Haviland’s alleged email threats also reflected some common grievances on the far-right internet.
In emails to the university office, Haviland allegedly raged that the term “cisgender”—a term describing people whose gender identify corresponds with the sex they were assigned at birth—was an “insult,” complained that he received “constant abuse” for being white, and called “intersectional” feminism “an evil disease of a movement.”
