A 22 year old California woman has lost her job and was reported to the Secret Service after placing the following post on her Facebook profile shortly after the election:
“And another 4 years of the (n—–). Maybe he will get assassinated this term..!!”
Turlock, California, resident Denise Helms, 22, placed the post on her profile shortly after President Obama was re-elected thinking it was okay as her profile was private. However, one of her contacts took a screenshot of the post and placed it on Twitter, where it then went viral, prompting Sacramento TV station Fox 40 to interview her about her comments Wednesday night.
Helms told Fox 40: “I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal. … The assassination part is kind of harsh. I’m not saying like I would go do that or anything like that, by any means, but if it was to happen, I don’t think I’d care one bit.”
Helms eventually deleted the post and replaced it with the following explanation: “So apparently my post last night about Obama got onto Twitter and Fox 40 came and interviewed me cause apparently a lot of people in Sacramento think I’m crazy and racist. WOW is all I got to say!! I’m not racist and I’m not crazy. just simply stating my opinion.!!!”
However, the incident and associated fallout did cause Helms to lose her job at Cold Stone Creamery. The Turlock Cold Stone Creamery store director Chris Kegle said he was shocked to read her post and see the Fox 40 interviews noting: “We found her comments to be very disgusting, and they do not reflect our opinions here. We never saw anything from her at work like those comments.”
Kegle noted that when he arrived to work the following day, there were more than 20 angry voice mails about Helms.
“We made the decision not only because of her comments, but also the community feedback. We are very into working with the community and doing community service. So when your community does not like you because of an employee, that’s bad. We have a business to run.”
Helms also caught the attention of the Secret Service as threats against the president are a felony under U.S. Code Section 871. Which reads:
“Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President of the United States, or the Vice President-elect, or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President, President-elect, Vice President or other officer next in the order of succession to the office of President, or Vice President-elect, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”
A local newspaper, the Modesto Bee, contacted Agent Scott Gillingham from the Sacramento office said he was not familiar with Helms’ case specifically, but confirmed that his office would be assigned to review any report from Turlock, but he would not comment further on any possible investigation into her posting.
“We get a lot of these kinds of referrals, especially off of the Internet,” he said.
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