Alvaro Eduardo Guzman-Telles, 29, posted a message on Facebook Dec. 15. that read "I'm going to personally kill and behead Daniel Pantaleo. This is a written threat and has to be taken extremely seriously."
Pantaleo is one of the police officers who a New York grand jury refused to indict in the death of Garner.
Last July, Garner died after being placed in a chokehold by several officers on a street in Staten Island, New York. Police were questioning Garner for selling untaxed single cigarettes on the street. The grand jury decision to not indict the officers sparked nationwide protests against law enforcement.
According to the FBI, Guzman, owns three guns, had originally posted "Kill all cops on sight. No matter the circumstances." He deleted the post following his mother’s advice who warned him that he could get in trouble.
His defense attorney, James C. Thomas, is not commenting on the case, but his father, Victor Guzman, defended him saying he is exercising his First Amendment rights.
“It’s just words. He was venting,” his father told The Detroit News. “It is symbolic language. That does not mean he was going to do that.”
Victor also claimed that his son has Asperger’s syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism that can limit the ability to socialize and communicate with others.
The father and son were both in Mexico when the FBI first contacted the family last month.
The suspect voluntarily returned to the United States and cooperated with the FBI, Victor Guzman said.
“If there was some kind of will to do something, he wouldn’t have gone out of the country and come back knowing he was going to be detained,” Victor Guzman told The News. “I just think this is something the police want to make an example of.”
Guzman was arrested Jan. 7 in New Mexico. He was charged on Tuesday of interstate transmission of threatening communications and ordered to be held without bond.
According to the affidavit, Guzman-Telles has no criminal history.
