By Nate Raymond
BOSTON (Reuters) -A Massachusetts woman invoked the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk as something "we love" as she threatened last month to kill federal agents conducting an immigration arrest, U.S. prosecutors said on Thursday.
Bethany Abigail Terrill, 37, was arrested on Wednesday as the U.S. Department of Justice moves to take aggressive action against individuals nationally who threaten agents at the front lines of President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
Terrill, a resident of Malden, Massachusetts, was charged in a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Boston with threatening a U.S. official, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
A defense lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
The case stemmed from events that occurred on September 29 near a courthouse in Medford, Massachusetts, where agents from the FBI, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations had gathered to conduct an immigration arrest of an individual there to be arraigned.
As agents handcuffed the individual, Terrill, a bystander, approached, screaming “ICE is here, ICE is here” and “you guys are monsters, this is insane” while pushing through the agents and filming them with her phone, according to charging papers.
Terrill failed to comply with commands from agents to back up and addressed them as "Nazis" and "disgusting," authorities alleged.
According to court papers, as agents led the arrested individual to a car, Terrill yelled: "Charlie Kirk died, and we love it... we're coming for you, gonna kill you."
Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was shot on September 10 while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University, a killing that shocked the nation and reignited debates over political violence.
Authorities after hearing Terrill's comments detained her and seized her phone, which contained video of the incident. According to court papers, after the video was replayed for Terrill, she then said: "We are coming for you. We don't like Nazis in America."
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
