Not Guilty By Reason Of Too Much Alt-Right Media Coverage

From today's LA Times:

“Mark Feigin is a good, decent man. He has no criminal record and he is not a danger to anyone. He has worked as a Chinese translator , as a screenwriter and as a real estate developer,” the statement said. “If anything, Mr. Feigin was a victim of the toxic national discourse of this political season.”
   Feigin has been exposed to a lot of “alt-right” media coverage that vilifies Muslims, his attorneys said. The so-called alternative right is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a movement of groups and individuals — largely to be found on social media and the Internet — who espouse extreme right-wing ideology and white identity politics. The movement has gained a higher profile for its embrace of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

He was arrested for making threatening calls to an Islamic Center, threats to kill people there.

This is a guy who was influenced by those folks who talk about taking personal responsibility and who say that their talk doesn't influence people to actually take action.  Sarah Palin's denied any responsibility for Rep. Giffords being shot after posting a picture of Giffords' (and others') district with crosshairs over it.

"Palin noted that criminals are responsible for their own actions,"

So who is Mark Feign?

This seems to be the same guy.  Same name.  Picture looks very similar to the one in the CBS news link below.  Age seems about right.  And it says he speaks fluent Mandarin (and Polish.) Real estate.

Screenshot from realtor.com*

Oh, did I forget to mention that police found guns and ammunition in his home?  CBS News Channel 2 has a post with video (which I don't seem to be able to embed or link to, but which you can find at the link.)  The two pictures below are screenshots of from the video of the guns and ammo they found in his house.

Screenshot from CBS News

Screenshot from CBS News

Tony Ortega On Scientology at Underground Bunker paints a long and disturbing picture of Mark Feigin, apparently also known as Milosz, along with copies of tweets and other online tracks.  You can  compare what's there to Feigin's lawyer's statement above that he's a good and decent man and no danger to anyone.

I'd be willing to bet, given the Milosz moniker and his language fluencies, that he's an immigrant, likely from Poland.  And the Ortega post says he's a Trump supporter.  Anyone hear Trump calling for this guy to be deported?  (I'm guessing he's in the country legally and probably has US citizenship by now.)  [Yes, these are educated guesses on my part without proof.  I'm NOT calling for his deportation, I'm just pointing out a bit of likely irony in the situation.]

Note to readers:  I was struck by the defense claim of "victim of the toxic national discourse of this political season."  I think it's important to note when right wing suspects use that sort of contextual defense, since they totally reject such defenses for people of color.  That's all I really wanted to post about.

But as I tried to find a little more information it got more and more disturbing.  He's out on bail.  I'm assuming that the police confiscated the guns and ammo they found.




*I'm putting up the screenshot since I'm not sure how long the original will be available online.  His Facebook page is down.