Man Gets Prison Time For Threatening To Blow Up Fallen Officer's Funeral On Facebook
DETROIT (WWJ/AP) -- A Detroit man was sentenced on Friday to more than a year in prison for threatening to blow up the funeral of a fallen police officer.
Deshawn Lanton, 21, will spend 15 months in prison after pleading guilty to false information and hoaxes by threatening to blow up the funeral procession of Detroit police Sgt. Kenneth Steil in September 2016.
According to court records, Lanton wrote a threatening message to the WXYZ Facebook live stream of the funeral at St. Joan of Arc Church in St. Clair Shores. Lanton wrote "Maybe I should drop a bomb on tha building to get rid of the rest of ya'll" in the comment section.
Other Facebook live viewers read the post and contacted police. Detroit police and the FBI investigated the incident.
Lanton made the post under the pseudonym Kane Pnotes.
A search of other posts allegedly by Lanton showed him posing with several guns and commenting on videos of police officers saying "how pleased he was" see them getting injured.
Steil was killed in the line of duty in September 2016.
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