Photo: WENN.com
A man who threatened Taylor Swift on Facebook and then attended her concert in the US has been arrested.
Swift was performing at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Saturday 6 July for about 57,000 fans. Among them was 28-year-old Joseph Jackson of Clarksburg, who had been sending the star death threats via Facebook.
Police report that Jackson threatened Swift on Facebook, where he said: "Taylor Swift must perish and die". Jackson then attended the concert with posters of her reading “I luv you” and “Taylor Swift is with Satan". After police saw the posters and the alleged Facebook threats, they moved in and grabbed Jackson in his seat.
“Certain actions you take on the internet are illegal by definition,” said attorney David Shrager, commenting on the case. “Certain statements can be used against you in a courtroom.”
Commenting that social media can be dangerous legal territory, he added: “I have cases, I go into court, the prosecution has evidence of my client making statements on the internet or taking pictures of himself with firearms and putting them on Facebook pages or their Twitter accounts and that makes it very difficult for me."
Watch the video for 'I Knew You Were Trouble' by Taylor Swift below:
In this case, police say Joseph Jackson became particularly agitated when asked about the Facebook threats towards Swift. According to police records, Jackson told arresting officers: “Taylor Swift is Satan and that 6,000 years is six days and death comes on the sixth day, so Taylor Swift is in danger.”
Although detectives found no weapons on him, they confiscated the posters, handcuffed him and took him to jail, where he will face a mental evaluation.
Sources confirm that Swift's security officials are very proactive regarding any sort of threat against the artist, therefore they passed that information to police who made the arrest.
Meanwhile, attorney David Shrager offered the following simple advice: "Don’t say anything on the internet that you wouldn't say in front of a police officer, a judge, a prosecutor or your mother."
