A Urich, Missouri, man is being investigated for making several bomb threats to Jewish institutions in the Kansas City area and in Washington, D.C. The man was arrested on Thursday, Nov. 30, and charged with assaulting two FBI agents who were executing a search warrant in the case.
Over several days in July, bomb threats were called in to the phone system at the Jewish Community Campus and Congregation Beth Shalom, both in Overland Park, and Congregation Kol Ami, which holds services and events at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Kansas City, Missouri.
Ford Kevin Coots, 25, allegedly made those threats as well as one on April 24 against Ohev Sholom — The National Synagogue in Washington, D.C.
According to the affidavit filed in federal court Dec. 1, local threats included obscenities and such rants as “I am going to kill all you worthless Jews …” and “You are all the cause of the problems in this nation. …”
After the synagogue threats, a man identifying himself as Ford Joseph Holloway submitted an online tip to the FBI saying he was the “mastermind behind the Jewish synagogue bomb threats.” He told the FBI where he lived and told them to try to arrest him, but to “be prepared for a fight as I will be armed and attempt to rake (sic) some of you down before you kill me. …”
The FBI traced the man to the home of a woman who said that she had an adult son, Coots, who sometimes used the Holloway alias and that he suffered from mental health issues. The FBI also determined that several of the threats originated from his phone.
When FBI agents went to the home last week with a search warrant, he attacked them with a shovel, hitting one agent in the hand and damaging his gun and another in the chest.
Coots has not yet been charged with anything connected to the bomb threats, according to media reports, but could face up to 20 years in prison for assaulting federal officers.
