In Minnesota this summer, an arrest connected to threatening messages underscored how heightened anxiety in a community can amplify the impact of words that, on their own, didn’t target a specific individual but nonetheless raised serious concern. Just days after the politically motivated shootings that killed Melissa Hortman and her husband and wounded John Hoffman and his wife, authorities took into custody Jonathan Michael Bohn, a 41-year-old lobbyist from Woodbury. Prosecutors filed a felony charge accusing him of threatening violence near the Minnesota State Capitol, based on a series of text messages he sent to an acquaintance. The messages did...
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