(JTA) – A Jewish man in metropolitan Detroit was arrested and charged with making a terroristic threat Saturday after allegedly asking on social media if anyone wanted to help him “go to Dearborn & hunt Palestinians.”
The reported remark and the arrest come amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
Carl Mintz, 41, was arraigned in Dearborn, a heavily Arab-American suburb of Detroit where large pro-Palestinian rallies were recently held following the deadly Hamas terror attack that killed more than 1,400 Israelis and wounded thousands. Israel’s military response has killed an estimated thousands more Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and displaced hundreds of thousands.
Mintz was charged with a felony of making a threat of terrorism and a misdemeanor charge of malicious use of a telecommunications device for the posts he allegedly published on Oct. 11. A conference to determine probable cause is scheduled for Tuesday.
Mintz’s threat to hunt Palestinians was published alongside pro-Israel social media posts, and the arrest comes following a string of reported anti-Muslim and antisemitic incidents in the United States and elsewhere following the Oct. 7 attack and the ensuing war. Last week, a 6-year-old Palestinian-American child in the Chicago area was stabbed to death, allegedly by a man who was angry about the Hamas attack.
Mintz appears to come from a Jewish family, according to an obituary of his father published in the Detroit Jewish News. The paper also covered Mintz’s 2010 arrest for shooting an Arab motorist in the arm in a road-rage incident. He ultimately pleaded guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon after an initial mistrial and received 11 months’ probation.
At the time, local reports said, Mintz maintained a YouTube channel filled with videos targeting Islam, which he described as “a cult” and “a threat to all Judeo-Christian nations.” His brother told local news that Mintz had been distraught since the recent deaths of both their parents.
Mintz is a realtor and former school board candidate in the suburb Farmington Hills who ran for office in 2022 on a platform of “ending critical race theory,” an issue that has recently animated portions of the right. He is also an aspiring actor. His real-estate firm told the Detroit Free Press it “released” him after he was charged this week.
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud praised Mintz’s arrest in a statement. “Threats of violence against our community will not be tolerated,” he said. “We are pleased to see that the charges filed this weekend reflect the severity of the message of hate that this individual chose to post online last week.” Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy also said, “We take these threats very seriously.”
The Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on prosecutors to charge Mintz with ethnic intimidation.
The period since Oct. 7 has also seen a string of high-profile antisemitic incidents. A synagogue in California was vandalized and a man in North Carolina was arrested for allegedly threatening a synagogue with “public execution.” An Israeli student was assaulted at Columbia University on Oct. 11.
Jewish organizations joined together this week, following the Chicago-area killing, to speak out against that incident and anti-Muslim hate as well as antisemitism. Local rabbis attended the boy’s funeral.
