Man Threatens To Kill Dozens At Gay Club On Grindr

An Ohio man was arrested for a threat he made on a dating app to kill dozens at a gay club, reported WBNS, a CBS affiliate in Columbus. Me’Schach D. Israel-Miller sent the message on Grindr, threatening to “kill 85 f----ts at a gay club.”

He faces misdemeanor charges of inducing panic and aggravated menacing, according to WBNS. Israel-Miller allegedly made the threat on March 1. His arraignment is set for March 8.

Columbus authorities used his Grindr photos to find his Facebook page, which in turn helped them find his home so they could make an arrest.

Grindr is a dating app aimed at gay and bisexual men where users can match with each other and send messages to set up meetings. Israel-Miller allegedly sent the threatening message to another user on the app, prompting the user to take a screenshot and post it on social media. The post went viral, according to the New York Daily News.

The nature of the app potentially made the message more threatening, as Grindr matches users are based on their physical locations. That meant Israel-Miller would have been in the same area as the user he was threatening.

Anxiety about mass killings has been high in recent weeks since the Feb. 14 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

News reports noted the obvious link between Israel-Miller’s threat and the 2016 shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando that killed 49 people.

The Pulse shooting was one of a series of notable attacks at LGBT-friendly establishments. In late February, a man opened fire into the windows of a transgender club in Las Vegas, wounding one woman.