CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - West Virginia’s top court has reinstated a terrorism charge against a school custodian accused of threatening to get a gun and shoot people in the school if his workload was increased.
The Supreme Court says Brooke County Judge Ronald Wilson wrongly dismissed the indictment against Floyd Ference for threatening to commit a terrorist act.
The police complaint alleged Ference, based on statements from two other custodians, made the threat at Wellsburg Middle School on Sept. 1, 2016.
The judge ruled that it didn’t constitute a terrorist threat by legal definition “aimed at the civilian population as a whole” or directed at a branch or level of government.
The top court says it qualifies since the school is part of the government and the threat was against “unspecified others.”
Defense attorney Robert McCoid says his client lost his job and it was “a flip comment” from “a guy blowing off.”
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