An Orem man was arrested after he allegedly threatened to shoot YouTube employees.
David Levon Swanson, 35, was taken into custody on Saturday for investigation of making terroristic threats, a second-degree felony.
In one comment he posted April 30 on a YouTube video, Swanson wrote, “When I visit your campus in two weeks I'll be able to shoot any employees exiting, from the convenience of my car.”
According to police, Swanson “claimed he meant a video shoot or taking pictures.” But he also told police that he drove to the Bay Area in California — YouTube is headquartered in San Bruno, 12 miles south of San Francisco — “with a firearm in his possession two weeks after posting” the comment about shooting employees.
According to a probable cause statement, Swanson also “admitted he knew” about a shooting at YouTube headquarters in April 2018 — a woman wounded three employees before killing herself — and “admitted he would be concerned if someone made a similar post/comment to him, his wife and their house.”
Orem Police began investigating on May 14 when they were “made aware of several threats” Swanson made online. They were:
• "The only thing that comes after the death of YouTube is a funeral for all the executives that were rightfully murdered." (Posted Sept. 5, 2018, on a video titled "Logan Paul & KSI Copyright Takedown.”
• "Google, amazon, facebook, twitter... all very happy to kill themselves, by falling for leftist ideology (religion). Their only hope of not getting their executive teams slaughtered (by gun) is to clean up their act and start following the spirit of the US Constitution." (Posted Dec. 6, 2018, on a video titled "What happens if you tell Google to kill itself?")
• "It's actually because the goons at YouTube think their ideology has won another victory. They see Pewds as someone that is moving further away from the religion they believe in (Leftism) and bringing millions with him. I'm not saying YouTube employees need to die, but I know they are at least as evil as any Of the worst groups in history because their hearts are evil and they happen to be wielding the weapon of the power of speech. They won't last much longer."
And:
• “Hey YouTube — you just lost your parent company $70,000,000,000 — see I kept saying you guys were gonna get what you deserve soon. Get woke go broke, and when I visit your campus in two weeks I’ll be able to shoot any employees exiting, from the convenience of my car, because the First Amendment allows me a right to do so.” (Both posted April 30 on a video titled “Ending the Subscribe to Pewdiepie Meme”)
