An 18-year-old Tewksbury man who law enforcement says has described mass shooters as his “heroes” and advocated a race war faces federal charges alleging that he threatened to kill President Trump.
Prosecutors say that on June 21, Trenton Touch sent a direct message on Instagram to another user with him holding what appears to be a scoped rifle along with three messages: “it’s time,” “im gonna kill trump,” and “not yet unc i suck at shooting past 200 yards.”
These and other messages were brought to the FBI’s attention in September when Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, disclosed them as the results of new algorithms deployed to identify threats of violence on their platforms.
Meta’s disclosure, according to an FBI affidavit submitted in the case, identified four Instagram accounts allegedly used by Touch: “Noctulianmumma,” “trentontou2,” “suwiishwiwheieb,” and “fascistlarper2.”
Meta says these accounts “submitted multiple communications in which he threatened to kill other individuals,” according to the affidavit. In addition to the threats to kill Trump, Touch allegedly also said “I just want to kill a few people like you before I die,” stated a desire for “larping while shooting a place up” and hanging someone. “LARPing” is slang for “Live Action Role-playing” in which people dress up as characters to act out games.
Federal prosecutors on Oct. 30 filed a criminal complaint charging Touch with making a threat against the President of the United States. U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Paul G. Levenson unsealed the case on Thursday. Touch is scheduled to make his initial appearance in federal court in Boston on Monday.
The FBI says that Touch through his Instagram accounts expressed a fascination with mass shooters, and particularly those who were motivated by racist extremism, who Touch allegedly referred to as his “heroes.” He allegedly shared videos of shootings, beheadings, and other graphic acts with others in ways edited to fool algorithms that would otherwise block the material and would direct users to the locations of unedited videos.
“Violent extremists may watch graphic videos depicting extreme violence and gore in an effort to desensitize themselves to violence,” FBI Special Agent Alistair Brockmeyer wrote in the affidavit.
Brockmeyer says that Touch was particularly interested in the perpetrator of the 2019 Christchurch, New Zealand, mosque shooting who killed 51 people.
“All these nons deserve is more killings in their place of worship and their homes. There should be a Christchurch happening every single day of every single week. It should be constant death and misery for them,” Touch allegedly wrote on Aug. 17 in an Instagram group chat containing more than 400 participants.
On June 7, the FBI says, a Touch account posted an image of the stock of a rifle that featured the names of at least two mass shooters as well as the line “Here’s your reparations” written in silver marker ink. He has also posted other photos the FBI says feature known references to white supremacist violence.
“Touch sent messages and engaged in chats indicating that he was an adherent of violent white supremacist, Nationalist Socialist, and accelerationist ideology—an interest in accelerating the collapse of society through chaos, violence, and terrorism to enable a race war and the eventual creation of a white ethno-state based on Nationalist Social principles,” according to the affidavit.
The affidavit includes many alleged quotes from Touch accounts indicating an affinity for Nazism, advocating for the murder of politicians and non-white people and even their children. At least one example is a clear reference to killer cult leader “Charles Manson’s belief of an impending apocalyptic race war between Black and White Americans” that he called “Helter Skelter,” according to the affidavit.
“Are you truly ready for the helter skelter?2 Are you truly ready to HATE? Not only HATE the alien races, but the race traitors as well?” Touch allegedly posted on June 1. “Are you ready to BLAST THEIR HEADS off them?”
Federal authorities searched both Touch’s home in Tewksbury and his grandparent’s home in New Hampshire. Across the two locations, they found a revolver, military surplus items including camouflage and a ballistic helmet, knives, a hatchet. They also found what they described as “various items espousing white supremacist and Nazi ideology.”
