A 26-year-old Florida man named Alexander Lightner was arrested on Monday over allegations that he made mass murder threats on an unidentified “internet messaging platform” where he promised to set a new “high score” body count and to “unleash the wrath of the Aryan that has no purpose left.”
According to a publicly filed complaint by the Sarasota FBI office, first reported on by Court Watch, agents executed a search warrant on Lightner’s residence in Lemon Bay Drive in Venice, Florida, where they found a 6-7-inch-long silencer in a laundry hamper in the room Lightner shared with his brother.
FBI agents also said they found .308 ammunition at the foot of Lightner’s bed, as well as multiple firearms.
Lightner was charged with "Transmitting a threat to injure in interstate or foreign commerce." Because the silencer didn’t have a serial number or a maker’s mark and hadn't been registered in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, Lightner was hit with an unregistered firearms charge.
The FBI had also collected a history of messages they say Alexander posted on Dec. 29, 2023 which may have demonstrated an intention to commit violent acts in service to white supremacist ideology.
“2024 there shall be saints u fuq,” Lightner allegedly wrote in one message highlighted by the complaint.
“It’s so over. It’s so begun,” he wrote in another.
"I've spectator (sic) 15+ years, as a pushy, reluctant teacher better, role, fulfilled? Fuck all yall. I am greater,” Lightner went on to post, per the complaint. “I tried life as the system commands. It did not work. Now you shall she (sic) 15 years of obligation. Of duty. Of role. Of leadership. Of teaching. Mentoring. Duty. Honor. Those that know me know. It's over, you have not seen the wrath of the Aryan that has no purpose left."
According to the complaint, Lightner told agents that he was drunk when he made the posts, but that he did remember making them, and that he’d made them because “he wanted attention from the online community.”
The “saints” reference was a nod to the idea that he would become “sainted” after death, i.e. canonized by internet Nazis.
According to a report by the Global Network on Extremism & Technology, “sainting” became a popular way for online white supremacist communities to honor far-right terrorists who had committed mass homicidal violence in service to the cause. The report points to the term coming into vogue after the 2019 mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, by Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people and injured 21 more in a live streamed mosque attack, with posters quickly whipping up pseudo-ironic iconography glorifying the mass murderer.
According to the complaint, a search of Lightner’s room also uncovered “white supremacist and accelerationist” propaganda in his room, including propaganda that discussed the “saints” idea.
The complaint included a redacted username where the posts allegedly came from, which Lightner confirmed was his. He also told the agents that nobody else had access to the account, and that he’d made the posts.
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