The Windsor Star – by Dalson Chen
A 44-year-old local man is facing a criminal charge because he allegedly posted on Facebook a video depicting Windsor police headquarters being blown up with a rocket launcher.
“We take this seriously,” said Windsor police spokesman Sgt. Matt D’Asti on Tuesday.
“We felt strongly enough that this was a conveyance of a threat — and we acted on it.”
D’Asti said the video started circulating on Facebook on Sunday. It caught the eye of a member of the local media, who brought it to the attention of Windsor police.
Investigators with the major crimes branch checked out the Facebook account in question and viewed the video.
According to D’Asti, the video was made with the”FxGuru” phone app. It shows the north side of the WPS downtown station. There is an overlaid computer animation of a rocket launcher being loaded and fired at the building, with a resultant fiery explosion.
D’Asti said the individual responsible for the video can be heard speaking over the recording. “It’s just one line, really. He talks about it being ‘payback time,’” D’Asti said. “It’s a bit disturbing to watch.”
The man has since removed the video from his Facebook account — but not before police were able to copy it.
Officers went to the suspect’s residence on Monday evening and arrested him on a charge of conveying a threat.
Under section 264.1 of the Criminal Code of Canada, the charge carries a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment as an indictable offence, or 18 months imprisonment as a summary offence.
D’Asti said the accused has a history with police.
The man has been released on a promise to appear in court.
Asked for a copy of the video in question, D’Asti said it can’t be distributed as it’s now considered evidence.
FxGuru is one of many humourous software apps that allow users to overlay a wide variety of special effects on videos recorded by their smartphones.
Besides a rocket launcher attack, FxGuru can spice up videos with aliens, meteors, tornadoes, dinosaurs and more.
D’Asti said he’s played with similar apps himself, like countless other iPhone and Android users.
Asked why Windsor police are treating this particular video with such seriousness, D’Asti replied that they can’t afford to speculate about the intentions of the accused.
“Given everything in context, when you’re dealing with the video and the words that are uttered, it meets (the criteria) of a threat,” D’Asti said.
“People need to be mindful of the things they say and the actions they take,” D’Asti continued. “Things like that, conveyed in public, could be deemed to be criminal in nature.”
Below: A demonstration of FxGuru’s rocket launcher effect.
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2014/07/08/windsor-police-arrest-man-over-facebook-video-post/
HAHAHAHA!!! That’s awesome. Change it to the Round Rock police and it will make it even better for me.
getoveryourselves
It’s art. It’s protected free speech.
Wouldn’t they need an actual rocket launcher to be able to prove him a CREDIBLE threat?