Stephen Bonczyk of Lakeland Florida is a tyrant and fascist who doesn’t respect our right to free speech in the US.
They think they’re making an example. That this will have a chilling effect.
They’re wrong. All this is going to do is radicalize even more people. As it should.
This occurred in Deregulated Fucking Florida and I thought the damn MAGATs are for freedom of speech.
Only for billionaires or corporations
“You people are next” does seem pretty threat-ish, however:
After being charged with threats to conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism, a judge set Boston’s bond at $100,000.
That is completely out of touch with what happened. “You people are next” not an act of terrorism.
It’s easily argued that the statement was a warning, not a threat.
It’s hard for me to agree this is a threat after media has spent years explaining why all of Trump’s language is actually never threatening or inciting violence, even after his language incited violence.
It is towards the ruling class. They can’t let this grow into something that threatens them.
May the first amendment suit she files after this gain her the money she needs for her healthcare. And may whatever insurance company this is be dissolved.
I’ve heard worse death threats in Fortnite.
I’m not convinced it’s a threat. She didn’t say she was DOING anything, just that nobody is putting up with their shit anymore…
Regardless whether you support her general conduct, I think we can all rally around one tenet here:
Don’t harass a shitty company’s T1 support out of priciples against the company in general.They’re in no better position to effect change in the system than you are. They exist only to be slightly more competent phone robots, turning your whiney noise into itemized actions, and filter those actions down to a restricted subset of system commands the company permits them to do.
If anything, they’re on our level of the totem pole. Any outrage directed at them for actions of their broader company are a gross misdirection and wholly counterproductive.
I don’t know who this lady was speaking to on the phone. But if it was some minimum wage phone bank slave who is just the ablative frontline of the customer support hotline, I don’t support her threat in that context.
This is a dumb take. Their frontline workers should take the brunt of what the public feels. That is the point as you can’t get to anyone higher up. Maybe people won’t want to work there anymore and they will have to pay much higher wages to attract people.
Sounds like a win to me. Company goes under because no one wants to work for them knowing the public hates them or they will get paid enough they don’t care.
In your world we can’t show hate because someone isn’t paid enough and it isn’t there decision. It’s not their fault. But then you can’t access the person who is at fault so there is nothing you can do. This is fundamentally broken concept and is akin to resignation.
Maybe if her threat was directed towards the minimum wage worker, they’ll let her go then.
Inb4 nuremburg
Freedom of speech, as long as it’s completely meaningless.
Her saying, “you people are next,” is what makes it a threat, thus not protected under free speech.
That’s not a threat. Thays a awning. She never said she would do anything specific. This is a slam dunk defense case.
She should of said, " The second amendment people will take care of you". Now that is presidential.
What a fucking farce that our POTUS makes threats all the time but a citizen can’t even speak their mind.
Let’s free her
This will definitely ease tensions among the masses and rouse support for the Healthcare execs lmao
Won’t someone think of the CEOs.
I think of them often. How pretty they’d be painted in their own personal shade of red.
I think of them all the time actually…
I don’t know about insurance but I worked once alongside a Google call center DB team, for adwords and they received lots of messages like these over inbound AND outbound calls, emails or chats.
Google is EXTREMELY strict with threats issued to their own employees, even third party contractors, to the point they would ABSOLUTELY and without chance of appeals blacklist people like this person.
To dimension the sheer scale of being blacklisted by Google, that means that every IP address they ever registered you using, be it by VPN or whatever, gets thrown in a black hole you can never escape
Google services or accounts you linked using those IPs? Fucked forever.
If you were part of the unlucky people who get a static IP set, get ready to start a lengthy process just to remove your account from being associated to that one.
Marketing manager accounts? Screwed for life. Might as well say goodbye to your job and consider never advertising through adwords again.
And I’m not even touching what happens with devices, payment processors, YouTube, educative domains and, worst of all, corporate compute instances.
If Google didn’t destroy you in those cases, your company and your bank certainly will.
So yeah, if Google takes that shit seriously, you bet a healthcare provider will do the same
That seems impossible to manage… you would cripple google by running a botnet tainting millions of IPs that will get cycled to legitmate users.
Attorneys have said the insurance industry uses a “delay, deny, defend” tactic to withhold health care services.
Jailed for using words to describe what insurance companies do?
Judge is trying to fill their year-end quota.
“Delay, Deny, Depose. You people are next,” she allegedly said near the end of the call.
Let’s be real, the “You people are next” is probably the reason for jail.
“You people are next…”
“… to hear from my lawyer!”
“… to get bad press once I go to the newspaper.”
“… <insert anything that doesn’t mean physical violence.>”
I hope we don’t jail people based on what we think they meant.
police jail people for even less than that, they will lie and frame innocent people to put them in jail
She repeated the phrase written on the bullet casings used in the killing of an insurance CEO and then said “you people are next” on a phone call with her insurance - it’s clearly a threat given the context of the phrase and the killing. Denying that context is one of the less defensible positions here. What is more defensible is that her threat is clearly empty and the law has stricter requirements about what constitutes a crime.
She repeated the phrase written on the bullet casings used in the killing of an insurance CEO and then said “you people are next” on a phone call with her insurance - it’s clearly a threat given the context of the phrase and the killing.
Here’s the thing, at least this is how I view it:
Is it reasonable to believe she can actually carry out this threat? If not, then jail is waaaaay overkill. Shit, we have violent offenders and drunk drivers around here who don’t see the inside of a cell at all.
This woman, denied insurance for either a health matter that her or a loved one is going through. She’s a middle-aged woman who doesn’t own a firearm, and is likely very frustrated for being put in a health (or financial) crisis by the denial of her insurance provider.
Did she say “you people are next” in reference to the putting down of another insurance company CEO? Of course. Do people say things like that all the time out of frustration with no way they could realistically or literally carry out the threat? ALL THE TIME.
This is an example of the justice system taking the side of a business, and not a person. It’s shameful, and this judge likely hasn’t considered the harm caused by insurance companies - actual harm, that actually kills real life people!
Anyway, I don’t agree that she should have been arrested and jailed. I can empathize with her frustration, because I have sick American friends who always get shit on by their insurance company, delaying treatment or arguing against their doctor’s recommendations.
Let’s say an elected official or candidate (bless em if any would actually do this) says this phrase in a speech. Would they be arrested? Or would they be given an interview for them to explain themselves, where they deftly state “obviously I’m not talking about doing it myself - but generally speaking these companies are heading in a concerning direction”. There would be debates over it, some people would be upset, but the story would fade and the politician would likely move on as well.
Say that phrase with Trump’s voice in your head and it sounds like much of his political speech.
Regular folks must be a lot more careful with their speech in the US, far less of it is free.
Now your understand how freedom of speech in america works o7
yes, of course
Sure that’s the reason but is it a justification?
Do you know how many people are saying shit like this everyday all day?
This is the police protecting corporate America over the working class.
I guarantee they are taking orders from the oligarchs. Squash any talks of more execution
Agreed, and I never said otherwise.
Context means everything. It’s obviously a threat.
I’m not a sue happy individual but I would for sure sue in this situation.
The first amendment to the Constitution of the United States does not protect speech that threatens or incites violence.
Is it really a threat though? Idk. She’s repeating some words and saying “you’re next”, but not what they’re next for.
You’re next…to get no health insurance cover.
It seems pretty obvious what she was implying, but that’s what a trial is for. She may not have meant it, but it is clearly a threat of violence.
In all honesty it can be perceived as them being next in getting their claim denied and not only as the threat it as well be perceived.
It’s so very close to Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It that it could as well be a misunderstanding as a threat.If someone referenced a recent assassination then said, “You people are next,” would you seriously not take that as a threat?
I worked in a call center for several years and received no shortage of bizarre threats. Never once did I feel that any of the threats were worth being concerned about. Granted these would be threats over lack of warranty coverage on usually budget model phones so very different from health insurance where the dollar values and stakes are many orders of magnitude higher
I might.
That doesn’t necessarily prove it was meant this way and because we’re talking potential criminal offense it has to be proven it was meant as a threat if I’m not mistaken.Yes, that’s proven in the courts, not by the cops.
She said something that could easily be taken for a terroristic threat, given the context. It would be a bad thing to not take terroristic threats seriously. Whether she was being serious or not is irrelevant regarding her arrest.
They are going to have a tough time proving that in court. I bet this will get pleaded out to some small charge though.
If she were a parrot yeah sure, but there she is, and yet, featherless
Without the means to do it it’s not a threat.
Incorrect
How do you know she didn’t have means to do it?
That’s up for the
copscourts to prove. This is a sham case. If trump said that shit he would be applauded “oh that’s just trump being trump!”He literally said that Liz Cheney in the face, and nothing happened.
No, that’s up to the courts and investigators to prove. Cops did the right thing here, for once.
That’s what I meant
Nothing like jail time to radicalized someone more. Judge is playing 5d cheese by providing motivation.
Getting her in touch with the people that can get the job done.
From the article’s source article:
“She’s been in this world long enough that she certainly should know better that you can’t make threats like that in the current environment that we live in and think that we’re not going to follow up and put you in jail,” said Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor.
I thought we had a legal definition of a real threat, and this isn’t it.
This man on the other hand was released after his EIGHTH stalking arrest in three years.
https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/plano-man-8th-arrest-stalking-harassing-smu-students/
But someone who is stalking their ex and threatens to kill them the cops won’t do anything about.
Well is the ex a CEO?
Remember this the next time the cops tell someone they can’t do anything about a stalker or angry ex threatening to kill them until they actually act. They can do something. They choose not to.
I’ve had a loved one threatened by a drunk/high driver before. They (the asshole) nearly ran them off the road after swerving into the oncoming traffic lane, and my relative literally was doing nothing but drive the speed limit.
We had the full license plate number, and we met with the police after calling it in. The police then said they couldn’t do a thing. They didn’t even put out a call to get this guy off the road. They seemed legitimately bothered that we even reported the crime.
Judges too! He set her bail at 100K. Rapists get less than that.
The whole fucking system is as crooked as a $3 bill
