A 40-year-old man pleaded guilty Wednesday to sending threats via Instagram to burn down the house of Mayor Ted Wheeler if he didn’t fire a Portland police sergeant involved in a fatal shooting.
Kermit Tyler Poulson said he was drunk and not on his medication at the time and didn’t intend to cause any harm.
“I’m taking responsibility and accountability for a bad decision that I made,’’ Poulson told U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon. "Yes, it happened but it was not my intent to have any animosity towards the mayor.’’
Poulson told the judge that he was attending a protest in the wake of the police fatal shooting of Patrick Kimmons in downtown Portland last fall and other protesters threatened to break his jaw and hurt him if he didn’t send the message to the mayor to prove that he wasn’t a police officer himself.
“ ‘Well, text the mayor and prove you are not a cop,’ ’’ Poulson said he was told. “It was a dumb mistake. I regret doing it.’’
The judge asked Poulson if he considered going to trial and arguing as a defense that he was under duress. Poulson said yes but said he chose to plead guilty.
“ I have to take accountability for who I am,’’ he said. “I’m guilty.’’
His guilty plea to one count of transmitting threatening communications with intent to extort could bring a maximum sentence of two years in prison. Poulson’s lawyer Bear Wilner-Nugent said he’ll argue for probation when Poulson is sentenced on Oct. 2. By then, Poulson already will have spent 10 months behind bars, his lawyer noted.
Prosecutors have said Wheeler’s wife first noticed the comments from Poulson’s Instagram profile, “riot_cop_7,’’ on Wheeler’s Instagram account.
Poulson threatened to burn down the mayor’s house if he didn’t fire Portland police Sgt. Garry Britt, one of two officers involved in the fatal police shooting of Kimmons last September, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Kerin said.
Britt and Officer Jeffrey Livingston shot Kimmons when they confronted him in a parking lot in downtown Portland after they heard gunfire. Kimmons had shot and wounded two other men and ran toward the officers with a gun, according to police and video evidence. As he cut in between two parked cars, the sergeant and officer continued firing at Kimmons, who died at OHSU Hospital. A grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing by the police.
On Oct. 9, Poulson urged the mayor to fire Britt in multiple posts to Wheeler’s Instagram account, Kerin said.
The account shows these messages from Poulson’s Instagram profile:
“What are you doing about Patrick Kimmons?”
“We want Britt fired. Or your becoming a Defendant.”
“Ever had a Molotov cocktail thrown threw (sic) your bedroom window at 4 a.m.?’’
“Or your office building?’’
“The cops can’t protect you.’’
“What are you going to do? Fire Britt. No Molotov.’’
“Keep Britt. House on fire.’’
“You like your bricks? We can remove them from the house and throw them through a window.’’
When questioned by Portland police and members of the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force, Poulson at first denied writing those messages and suggested someone may have used his account. Later, he admitted to posting them, according to prosecutors.
While Poulson agrees with the elements of the crime that prosecutors summarized for the judge, he doesn’t agree “with every single thing,’’ his lawyer said.
The judge told Poulson that it doesn’t matter that Poulson may not have intended to harm the mayor, that the threat alone was enough to cause distress.
At the time of the Instagram posts, Poulson was homeless, living with an acquaintance in Portland, according to his initial lawyer, assistant federal public defender Susan Russell. He was diagnosed in the past as suffering from bipolar disorder, she said.
Poulson also is partially paralyzed after being hit by a car as a pedestrian in 2004, Wilner-Nugent said. He asked the judge to send Poulson to the federal prison in Sheridan pending his sentencing so he could obtain better access to pain medication and a wheelchair.
-- Maxine Bernstein
Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com
Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
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