Hours before President Joe Biden was scheduled to speak in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, a man was killed in a shooting involving FBI agents in Provo, Utah.
The FBI did not name the man, but court documents indicate that a Provo man was facing charges for death threats he had made against Biden and Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney.
The FBI said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that it was investigating an “agent-involved shooting” that had happened around 6:15 a.m. in Provo while special agents were trying to serve arrest and search warrants at a home.
A White House official said that Biden had been briefed on the matter Wednesday.
Court documents show that the Provo man was facing one count of interstate threats, one count of threats against the president and another count of influencing, impeding and retaliating against federal law enforcement officers by threat, according to a felony complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City.
Online posts made by the man said that he intended to kill Biden and Bragg, who is leading the prosecution of former President Donald Trump in New York, according to the complaint, which included several screenshots of the man’s online posts.
In a Facebook post on Sept. 19, 2022, the man wrote “the time is right for a presidential assassination or two.”
“First Joe then Kamala,” he wrote, referring to Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
In another online post, referring to Bragg, the man wrote that he wanted “to stand over Bragg and put a nice hole in his forehead with my 9mm and watch him twitch as a drop of blood oozes from the hole as his life ebbs away to hell!”
Published 10 August 2023, 01:19 IST