A series of Instagram Story videos lasted barely more than a minute, but federal prosecutors say they showed racks of firearms, ammunition, tactical equipment and a flamethrower while a man talked about killing Jewish people.<\/p>\n
One clip allegedly included the declaration that the people recording were going to “hunt Jews.” Another invoked Adolf Hitler through a reference to the “Austrian painter,” according to reporting on an FBI affidavit.<\/p>\n
Federal agents eventually identified Duncan Fraser MacDonald as the man appearing in one of the videos. Investigators then used information from Meta and T-Mobile as they worked to connect him to the Instagram account and phone number associated with the posts.<\/p>\n
MacDonald was arrested and charged in the Middle District of Florida with interstate transmission of a threat to injure another person. The charge is an allegation, and he is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.<\/p>\n
Inside The Videos<\/p>\n
The four videos were posted between Sept. 16 and Sept. 17 and together ran for roughly one minute and 25 seconds, News4JAX reported<\/a> after reviewing the federal complaint.<\/p>\n One showed racks containing firearms. The speaker allegedly said they were going to “hunt Jews” and “take them out,” while also saying that the “Austrian painter was correct,” an apparent reference to Hitler.<\/p>\n Other footage allegedly showed ammunition, loaded magazines, tactical equipment, a flamethrower and what the complaint described as a .50-caliber rifle.<\/p>\n MacDonald also allegedly displayed a tactical vest while saying it was “locked and loaded,” ABC News reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Another man holding a pistol appeared during the recordings. MacDonald allegedly identified him as his nephew.<\/p>\n An FBI agent later compared the person appearing in one of the videos with MacDonald’s Florida driver’s-license photographs and concluded they were the same person, according to News4JAX.<\/p>\n The Warning Spreads<\/p>\n The investigation began after someone familiar with MacDonald captured material from the Instagram posts and reported it.<\/p>\n The information ultimately reached the Jacksonville Joint Terrorism Task Force through the Jewish Federation & Foundation of Northeast Florida and the Secure Community Network, according to reporting on the complaint.<\/p>\n The Secure Community Network said<\/a> it and the federation worked with law enforcement to exchange information, support the investigation and keep the Jewish community informed before MacDonald’s arrest.<\/p>\n Federal agents also obtained subscriber records from Meta and T-Mobile that they said connected MacDonald to the account and telephone number associated with the videos. FBI surveillance later spotted his vehicle outside a residence in Middleburg, Florida, according to News4JAX.<\/p>\n A Text Exchange<\/p>\n The person who initially reported the videos later exchanged text messages with MacDonald, according to the complaint.<\/p>\n During that exchange, MacDonald allegedly made a reference to “Shabby service,” which the complaint connected to Shabbat services.<\/p>\n After the person told MacDonald that the FBI and the press had been contacted, MacDonald allegedly replied, “LMAO.”<\/p>\n Federal prosecutors charged<\/a> MacDonald under 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 875(c)<\/a>, which covers interstate or foreign communications containing a threat to kidnap or injure another person.<\/p>\n The offense carries a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.<\/p>\n If you want more stories like this, follow Guessing Headlights<\/a> on <\/a>Yahoo<\/a> so you don’t miss what’s coming next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A series of Instagram Story videos lasted barely more than a minute, but federal prosecutors say they showed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[63133,162789,162788,2362,34917,28,30,29,162790,162792,162791],"class_list":["post-410300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-adolf-hitler","tag-austrian-painter","tag-duncan-macdonald","tag-fbi","tag-federal-prosecutors","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-instagram-posts","tag-t-mobile","tag-tactical-equipment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}