Ingham County officials are charging more residents with making terror threats. Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings discusses what’s behind the surge and how one person’s “terror threat” is another’s “free speech.”
Not long after the 9-11 attacks, Michigan toughened laws involving bomb threats, including making a false terror threat. Still, for years mid-Michigan authorities rarely had occasion to invoke those charges. None happened in Ingham County between 2010 and 2013.
Lately, that's changed. Ingham County prosecutors have charged residents with the crime six times in the past 12 months.
Current State talks with Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings about that uptick and other recent developments including juvenile sentencing.