Called and asked to speak to to the Lieutenant or Chief. They lady was hesitant until I started telling her things she could familiarize with and then said "oh my" and patched me through.
Had to leave a message though.
The Lieutenant called me back within 30 minutes today. Told him the situation in Gatlinburg and that we were trying to find any info on the area when we came across the site with the comments.
He proceeded to look the site and story up while I was still reading the comments the best I could to him. Told me thank you that he would start calling on this right away and ask if I minded if he could call me back. I told him ofcourse.
Within 25 minutes he calls me back and tells me he called the local FBI office and the Judges office. Also says that both the judge and FBI are aware of him and know him as "Erick Giumelli".
He also said he doubted he had anything to do with the fire in Gatlinburg but was just being gleeful over it in his post.
I mentioned he talked about the big valley fire out in Mendocino last April in a comment on the second story with the 2000 comments. He told me they caught that guy.
I asked him why he wasn't in jail and threatening their Police Department, agents and judges. He said there is no credible evidence since he just posts the comments and doesnt act. Also said the FBI office called him a nutjob.
At this point in my head I'm thinking two things. #1 I'm calling bs because threatening Federal Agents and judges whether written or spoken are huge offenses and all they would have to do is get a warrant, trace the ip address and grab him and his computer or #2 this sent them scrambling and when he called me back downplayed it to me and just said the FBI called him a nutjob.
Or #3 Maybe he is just some nutjob.
I did email him both links with the comments so I passed along what we all found and can sleep better knowing they have the info if something was to happen.
It got me thinking later today. If they really just call him a nutjob and laugh it off, I sure hope they are really monitoring this guy. These are the people that walks in movie theaters and malls to do as much damage as possible.
I would like to say sorry and I never meant to hijack the Gatlinburg thread with this. The comments were eerily creepy to me after watching my beloved Smoky Mountain town in flames Monday night.