FBI: Kentucky man threatens to kill agent for questioning him about Nashville bombing
It didn’t take long for the FBI to clear James Keith Ray of any wrongdoing in the Nashville bombing on Dec. 25. Despite concerns about social media posts he made in the past, he was ruled out as a suspect when special agents questioned him the same day.
But Ray, a Henderson resident, still wound up in jail after he allegedly threatened to kill one of the agents who questioned him.
The perpetrator of the bombing was killed in the blast, according to law enforcement officials, but the FBI received a tip the same day as the bombing that led them to believe Ray may have been involved, according to court records.
The tip indicated that “an individual named Ray was ranting about how AT&T was abusing their power and how their (AT&T’s) policies were criminal,” Special Agent William Kurtz wrote in an affidavit filed in federal court.
The Nashville bombing targeted an AT&T building, leading to equipment damage that knocked out telephone service needed for 911 centers and credit card transactions, among other services, in the city and portions of other states, including Kentucky, according to multiple reports.
FBI agents questioned Ray at his home on Christmas evening, and they ruled him out as a suspect that day. But Ray allegedly threatened one of the agents on Twitter afterward.
“Agent Brown if you ever step on this property while I’m here you are a dead man do you hear me there is no amount of armor that will protect you from the range of my f-----g soul,” Ray wrote in the tweet, according to the affidavit. The tweet appears to have been deleted.
The tweet was posted on Jan. 5, according to the FBI. Ray was arrested Jan. 8, according to court records. He was charged with interstate transmission of a threat to injure a person, according to court records. The case remained sealed until Friday.
It wasn’t the first time Ray had made statements brought to the FBI’s attention, according to the affidavit. The FBI was notified of online threats allegedly posted by Ray which were directed at AT&T and several other businesses.
“Somebody needs to roll back that whole damn crew,” Ray wrote in a post, according to the affidavit. “Hope it doesn’t have to be me.”
Ray had also posted about trading household items for guns or other weaponry, according to the affidavit.
“#FBI last call before i act on your behalf,” Ray wrote in another post, according to the affidavit.
Ray was questioned by the FBI in September of 2016 regarding the posts. Ray lived with his parents in Henderson. They told FBI agents they were scared of their son and locked their bedroom door at night, according to the affidavit.
Ray again caught the attention of law enforcement in 2018 when he sent an email to a Nashville news station that expressed frustration about being harassed by multiple law enforcement agencies in Kentucky, according to court records.
His email “demanded an explanation of the perceived wrongs ‘or else,’” according to the affidavit. He also referenced the shooting at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., in which a gunman killed five people and injured two others in the paper’s newsroom.
“Let the so-called story out of Maryland ring through to your offices and you look around and imagine the shock you’re going to realize that half of the people that you see right now might be dead by the weekend at the hand of someone who isn’t a strong as I am that has a little bit more of a temper than I do,” Ray wrote, according to the affidavit.
Ray, who told FBI agents in 2018 that he’d completed a 28-day residential treatment at Western State Hospital, was denied release Friday by U.S. Magistrate Judge H. Brent Brennenstuhl. Brennenstuhl wrote in the order that he couldn’t ensure safety to others if he released Ray under any conditions.
“One tweet clearly evidences a threat which is risk of harm to community,” Brennenstuhl wrote in his order denying Ray’s release. “Testimony about subsequent arrests and at the time of this arrest (indicated) he continued to evidence some degree of non-compliance.”
This story was originally published January 28, 2021 at 9:25 AM.