Man Allegedly Told LGBTQ Group He’d ‘Slaughter’ Them Following Nashville Shooting

A Maryland man was arrested and is facing charges after allegedly calling an LGBTQ group and telling them he would “cut their throats" in apparent retaliation for the Nashville shooting. 

Adam Nettina, 34, of West Friendship, Maryland, was arrested on March 31 and charged with communicating a threat to injure against the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), an LGBTQ advocacy group, according to court documents released by the federal prosecutors this week. In a voicemail left for the HRC, a caller accuses the group of wanting to “slaughter fucking little kids” and warns them payback is coming. 

“If you want a war, we’ll have a war. And we’ll fucking slaughter you back,” the message says. “We’ll cut your throats. We’ll put a bullet in your head. We’re not going to give a fuck. You started this bullshit. You’re going to kill us? We’re going to kill you ten times more in full.”

The message was left at 11:31 p.m. on March 27.

The FBI says agents were able to trace the call to Nettina by researching open-source information on the number used to place it. The 34-year-old man did not attempt to mask his number, and the affidavit lists at least 8 ways law enforcement connected him to the number. The agents said they gleaned from a substack article Nettina wrote that he owned a semi-automatic rifle and therefore found the threat to be credible. 

The call occurred the day after a 28-year-old person, who police initially identified as transgender, opened fire on a Christian school  and killed six people, including three 9-year-olds. While the motive remains unknown, far-right influencers and even mainstream GOP politicians quickly and falsely blamed the violence on the shooter's reported gender identity, even though mass shootings are overwhelmingly carried out by cisgender, white males. 

Among the more insidious misinformation spread following the shooting was the demonstrably false idea that trans people have been responsible for several recent mass shootings. Despite the inaccuracy of the claims, threats against the community exploded across social media and, unsurprisingly, on the darker corners of the internet. 

The hateful rhetoric swirling after the tragedy only intensified an ongoing political war being waged against the transgender community. Drag shows are routinely protested and children's hospitals that offer, or are even accused of offering, gender-affirming care have received bomb threats. Just last week, police arrested a neo-Nazi accused of firebombing an Ohio church for planning to hold a drag show. (The organizers refused to cancel and the event went on without incident.)  

Nettina will appear before the court for a detention hearing on April 7. He faces five years in prison.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.