Local media reports indicate that Reed was initially arrested on December 7, 2018, and that he'd spent a weekend in jail before posting his $50,000 bond. Officials from Washington's Snohomish County became aware of the matter after investigators with the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) Center on Extremism informed the FBI in late October 2018 of Reed's Facebook posts.
"Reed made numerous online posts in social media accounts under a variety of pseudonyms that revealed deeply held white supremacist beliefs and visions of violence," reads a report from the ADL, which notes that Reed shared his posts under the names "William King" and "Tom Shill," among others.
In one post cited by the ADL, Reed describes a scenario in which he kills a Jewish child.
"Chamber of 12 gauge opens and shuts ejecting a spent gun powder smelling shell on the ground. Puts gun in Jewish kids mouth and raises his crying face off the ground with the shotgun," reads the post, which later includes dialogue. "William: At least your parents don't have to waste money on a Bar Mitzvah, hallelujah. Pulls trigger."
The stream of social media posts include a variety of anti-Semitic memes, selfies with Nazi salutes, a certificate of his Ku Klux Klan membership and photos of his gun collection. Some posts even referred to a mass shooting planned for sometime in 2025, the Herald Net reported.
"I'm shooting for 30 Jews," a post dated November 11, 2018, said, according to the Herald. "No pun needed. Long ways away anyways. See you Goys."
In another post, Reed wrote: "We can't vote away what our fathers tried to, we must spill blood."
Reed also allegedly made reference to "pulling a Dylann Roof," referring to the white supremacist who killed nine African-American churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 2015. Other messages on Facebook included one in which he allegedly stated that he was saving up money to buy guns and ammo in order to kill "(((rats)))."
The triple parentheses around a word or phrase is an anti-Semitic symbol used to designate an individual or organization as having a Jewish background. The ADL has classified the notation as a form of hate speech. Many Jews have taken to using the symbol themselves, as an inversion of its intention.
When law enforcement officials arrested Reed in December 2018, investigators found gas masks, military helmets and a selection of fascist symbols that matched items spotted in videos he'd posted on social media. Reed was arrested at his mother's home in Lake Forest Park. Officials were able to track him down through the phone number and email address used to register the social media accounts.
According to the Herald Net, in one of those videos, Reed represented himself as "Active Shooter 327," showing off his AR-15 rifle and saying that he was "fixing to shoot up a [expletive] school."
In a recorded interview with a Snohomish County detective and an FBI agent, Reed reportedly struggled to explain the reasoning behind his anti-Semitic posts, saying that Jewish individuals had lied to him before and that girls have preferred Jewish men over him.
He also allegedly admitted to authoring the messages, but indicated that they were meant be interpreted as fictional work.
Later, Reed explained that the posts reflected his state of mind when he felt angry about a variety of things in his life, according to the Herald. "I'm not finding a healthy outlet to brush all that out," he said.
Reed's arraignment is scheduled for April 18.
The announcement of charges came one day before FBI agents arrested Thomas Alonzo Bolin in New York on Thursday for lying to an agent. According to Democrat & Chronicle, officials had been investigating Bolin over a series of Facebook posts discussing plans for a terror attack similar to the Churchchrist shooting in New Zealand.