Upstate New York teenager threatened to shoot up protest on Snapchat: police
Rylan Christy, 19, allegedly posted a photo of himself holding a gun on the social media app on May 31, with a caption saying he was going to open fire at a planned demonstration in Saranac Lake, state police said Wednesday.
Cops found out about the Snapchat post on Tuesday, after someone took a screenshot and sent it to them, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise reported.
“It was a post of an individual holding an AR-style rifle,” spokesperson Trooper Jennifer Fleishman told the newspaper. “The post did not show the individual’s face.”
Christy was arrested Tuesday, just as hundreds of people were gathering for a rally in Saranac Lake’s Riverside Park.
Fleishman said the teen’s threat “was targeted toward violent rioters and looters, not the peaceful protesters at the demonstration in Saranac Lake.”
“This was an isolated incident,” she added. “There is no threat of harm to the public.”
Christy was charged with third-degree falsely reporting a crime. Police charged him under a subset of the law that falsely reports a “crime, catastrophe or emergency.”
He was given a desk appearance ticket to appear in Town of Franklin Court at a later date.
