Minnesotan charged with making threats in retaliation for Charlie Kirk killing

A Minnesota man has been charged with making gruesome and deadly threats of violence in retaliation for the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and sweeping threats against members of specific ethnicities and nationalities.

John Allan Sandeen, 64, of Mora was charged Friday in Hennepin County District Court with four felony counts of threats of violence in connection with troubling emails he sent this month.

Sandeen was arrested near his hometown and jailed Wednesday in Ramsey County on stalking and harassment charges also stemming from threats he directed toward a musician performing Beatles tunes on Sept. 7 at a White Bear Lake church and its music director.

According to the emails, Sandeen attended the show and was upset after hearing talk about John Lennon onstage between songs.

Sandeen remains in the Ramsey County jail in lieu of $10,000 bail ahead of an Oct. 8 court hearing. His attorney was not immediately available Saturday to comment.

“These threats are chilling and extremely graphic,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement.

She added that “our community is still reeling” from the assassinations in June of state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and shootings that seriously wounded Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette.

“We will not tolerate threats of politically motivated violence, and will do everything in our power to hold those who make these threats accountable,” Moriarty said.

The charges against Sandeen come amid fallout across the country after Kirk’s assassination on Sept. 10 during an event at Utah Valley University. The killing has turned up the volume and temperature even higher in an already politically divided country involving issues of gun violence, free speech and others.

According to the charges in Hennepin and Ramsey counties:

Police were contacted by the music director of a Maple Grove church who said he received a threatening email Monday from someone later determined to be Sandeen. The director, only identified in the charges as P.B., said he believes it came from the same person who saw him perform with others at a church in White Bear Lake earlier in the month.

The email, which said it was from Sandeen, read in part: “I think that you and your cohorts have killed my friend Charlie. For this I hold you and your people responsible. It’s fair game to let the hunted know that they are hunted. You are now advised.”

“When I and others take my time and money to hear you and your people play music, I just want to hear the music. I do not want to hear [P.B.’s] political views. ... Shut down the politics. I’m not kidding.”

Sandeen apparently was upset after hearing P.B. discuss with a fellow band member how “President Nixon was working with the FBI in an attempt to have John Lennon deported,” the Ramsey County charges read.

Still more of Sandeen’s writings threatened decapitation and other graphic violence toward both music directors.

More broadly, Sandeen wrote, “All your liberal left leaning people are now targets. You people killed my friend with your rhetoric. Now it is pay back time you better [expletive] hide.”

On Wednesday, officers found Sandeen at an airport hangar in Rush City, Minn. He was in a pickup truck and about to leave.