NEW YORK (Reuters) - The FBI said on Tuesday it arrested a man suspected of threatening on social media to kill police officers in Mount Vernon, New York.
The suspect was identified as 24-year-old Jeremy Mott of Mount Vernon, the FBI said on Twitter.
Mott posted messages on Facebook and Instagram in December threatening to injure and kill police in Mount Vernon, a suburb north of New York City, according to a criminal complaint filed in US District Court.
One threat posted on Dec 24 on Facebook, showed a photograph of someone firing a gun into a police vehicle, with a message that read in part "the cops in Mount Vernon... This is how they going to end up," it said.
The threat was made days after two New York City police officers were ambushed and shot dead in Brooklyn on Dec 20 by a man who wrote on social media that he wanted to avenge the deaths of two unarmed black men this summer in encounters with white police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York.
The police killer committed suicide minutes later.
New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton said last week that there had been more than 80 such threats against police on social media in the previous week that had led to at least 15 arrests.
