CBS News
Online threats against pro-Palestinian protesters rise in wake of Sen. Tom Cotton’s comments about protests
Online threats and hateful rhetoric against pro-Palestinian protesters have accelerated since Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas encouraged people affected by the mass protests to “take matters into your own hands,” according to a report obtained by CBS News.
Advance Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that conducts public interest research, says it found that there has been a surge in calls for violence against pro-Palestinian protesters across social media platforms this week after Cotton’s comments, with users threatening to kill or injure protesters.
The report found many of the threats were in direct response to Cotton’s post, as well as to right-wing accounts and personalities who shared the post online, including Fox News commentator Sean Hannity.
“RUN THEM OVER!” one user wrote on Truth Social, the social media platform owned by Trump Media, which is majority-owned by former President Donald Trump. “They are terrorists and should be shot,” wrote another. Others suggested mugging, hanging, executing, zip tying, or throwing the protesters off of bridges they are occupying.
To counter protesters who sometimes glue their hands to roads, one user on far-right social media site Gettr suggested that their arms be ripped off or that they should have their hands cut off.
“I encourage people who get stuck behind the pro-Hamas mobs blocking traffic: take matters into your own hands. It’s time to put an end to this nonsense.” Cotton posted on X April 15, before editing the post six minutes later to add “to get them out of the way.” Cotton accused the protesters of being pro-Hamas, though he offered no proof of this.
Earlier in the day before Cotton’s comments, protesters demanding a ceasefire in Gaza had shut down major roads and bridges in multiple cities, including San Francisco, Oakland, New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. Dozens of protesters were arrested, but there were no reports of violence.
Cotton continued to encourage a vigilante approach in interviews with Fox News and NBC News, telling Fox News that “if something like this happened in Arkansas on a bridge there, let’s just say I think there’d be a lot of very wet criminals that have been tossed overboard — not by law enforcement, but by the people whose road they’re blocking.” He told NBC News that if people are blocked by the protesters, “they should get out and move those people off the streets.”
It is not the first time Cotton has used charged language to describe how nationwide protests should be handled.
In a 2020 op-ed published in the New York Times, Cotton advocated sending in National Guard troops to stop nationwide protests after the murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis. After monuments around the country were vandalized by protesters, Cotton called those who defaced or destroyed statues during the Floyd protests “mob vigilantes” who “may come for you and your home and your family.”
“The Senator’s comments encouraging violence against protesters are irresponsible and dangerous. They not only complicate the work of local law enforcement, but they have also directly led to a surge in calls for violence against the protestors online,” Daniel Jones told CBS News. “The failure of other elected officials and political leaders to immediately condemn these comments — regardless of political party — only serves to further normalize divisive and violent rhetoric, which is directly linked to real-world violence.”
CBS News reached out to Cotton’s office via phone and email Friday night for comment.
Advance Democracy, founded by Daniel Jones, a former U.S. Senate staff investigator, including on the Intelligence Committee, conducts weekly monitoring of far-right media, foreign state media, and select social media platforms.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — The U.S. Justice Department is demanding records related to the July shooting death of Sonya Massey — an Illinois woman who was killed in her home by a sheriff’s deputy — as it investigates how local authorities treat Black residents and people with behavioral disabilities.
The government made a list of demands in dozens of categories in a letter to the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office, dated Thursday.
“The Sheriff’s Office, along with involved county agencies, has engaged in discussions and pledged full cooperation with the Department of Justice in its review,” Sangamon County Sheriff Paula Crouch said Friday.
Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, was killed July 6 when deputies responded to a call about a possible prowler at her home in Springfield, Illinois. She was shot three times during a confrontation with an officer.
The alleged shooter, Sean Grayson, who is White, was fired. He is charged with murder and other crimes and has pleaded not guilty.
“The Justice Department, among other requests, wants to know if the sheriff’s office has strategies for responding to people in “behavioral health crises,” the government’s letter read. “…The incident raises serious concerns about…interactions with Black people and people with behavioral health disabilities.”
Andy Van Meter, chairman of the Sangamon County Board, said the Justice Department’s review is an important step in strengthening the public’s trust in the sheriff’s office.
At the time of the fatal shooting, the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office was led by then-Sheriff Jack Campbell, who retired in August and was replaced by Crouch.
Deputy Sean Grayson’s history of misconduct
Grayson has worked for six different law enforcement agencies in Illinois since 2020, CBS News learned. He was also discharged from the Army in February 2016 after serving for about 19 months. He was hired by the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office in May 2023.
In an interview with CBS News in early August, Campbell said that Grayson “had all the training he needed. He just didn’t use it.”
In a recording released by the Logan County Sheriff’s Office, where Grayson worked from May 2022 to April 2023, a supervising officer is heard warning Grayson for what the senior officer said was his lack of integrity, for lying in his reports, and for what he called “official misconduct.”
Girard Police Chief Wayman Meredith recalled an alleged incident in 2023 when he said an enraged Grayson was pressuring him to call child protective services on a woman outside of Grayson’s mother’s home. He said Grayson was “acting like a bully.”
The recording and Meredith’s description of Grayson’s conduct showed how he quickly became angry and, according to documents, willing to abuse his power as an officer.
Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office history of accusations
According to a review of court records in 2007, Massey’s killing was the only criminal case in recent history against a Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office deputy for actions on duty. Local officials characterized her shooting as an aberration.
However, CBS News obtained thousands of pages of law enforcement files, medical and court records, as well as photo and video evidence that indicated the office had a history of misconduct allegations and accountability failures before Grayson. The records challenged the claim that Massey’s death was, as said by the then-sheriff, an isolated incident by one “rogue individual.”
Local families were confident that Massey’s death was the latest in a pattern of brazen abuse that has gone unchecked for years.
Attorneys for Massey’s family recommended an updated SAFE-T Act that would expand an existing database used to track officer misconduct to include infractions like DUIs and speeding during police chases.
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