By Karla Ward
Lexington Herald-Leader
LEXINGTON, Ky. — A Lexington man is facing a federal charge over allegations that he made comments on YouTube threatening to kill police officers.
The comments, traced by the FBI to Wyakee Ansaran Vinegar, include a statement Oct. 4 that “we going to have to start shooting and executing cops.”
A special agent with the FBI wrote in an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky that the investigation began after Google reported to the FBI Wednesday that a YouTube user going by the name Wyakee Douglas had been making comments that led them to believe that there was an “emergency involving imminent death or serious bodily injury to a person or persons.”
The email address for Wyakee Douglas was associated with the same Android device as that of Wyakee Vinegar, the FBI said.
On Oct. 2, he wrote, “We don’t have these problems in Lexington Kentucky ... I wish sum cops would shoot and kill sum black people here. Especially our kids. Were not pulling up to just to protest we are coming to kill.”
In an Oct. 6 comment, Vinegar recounted an incident in which he said his 12-year-old son was approached by a police officer while practicing, with permission, on a private college basketball court, according to court records.
He concluded by stating that he told the officer “I will defend my child and don’t ask me for my ID. He looked at me and got back in his car and left. I had my 9mm on me. Yeah over my kid that cop will get shot in the face ... imma empty the whole clip,” according to court records.
”Boy I swear I’m at the point where I seriously hate white people. I wanna be a serial killer of cops,” he wrote in another comment Sept. 29, according to court records.
On Sept. 26, 2022, he wrote that “white people are killing us so we need to start fearing for our lives and killing them.”
Previous comments on his Twitter page that were cited by the FBI also indicated that he supported violence against police.
Vinegar was arrested Friday and charged in U.S. District Court in Lexington with threatening communications in interstate commerce.
Vinegar, 48, was booked into the Fayette County Detention Center Friday, according to the jail website. Court records indicate he is scheduled to make his first court appearance at 2 p.m. Monday.
“In my training and experience, many individuals who commit violent offenses, escalate their threatening behavior in the way Vinegar has,” FBI Special Agent Chelsea Holliday wrote in the affidavit. “His comments on Twitter in 2020 and 2021 showed a clear disdain for law enforcement and were threatening.
“Furthermore, Vinegar’s more recent comments in September and October 2022, escalated to another level where Vinegar is explicitly calling for violence against, or death to, ‘white people’ and law enforcement officers, and stating he himself will ‘shoot’ or ‘kill’ them.”
Vinegar’s criminal history includes a 2005 arrest for third-degree assault of a law enforcement officer.
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