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Boardman teen charged with menacing, inducing panic

BOARDMAN — An 18-year-old township man was arrested after being accused of leading an online chat room in which users made light of mass shootings, targeted Planned Parenthood and talked about the shooting of federal agents.

Justin Olsen, 465 Presidential Court, was charged with inducing panic and aggravated menacing threats against an officer. He is being held at the Mahoning County Jail without bond following his arraignment Thursday in Boardman Area Court, where he is scheduled to appear again Tuesday.

Township police were contacted by an FBI agent on Tuesday about the chat room. The Anchorage, Alaska, office of the FBI first took notice of the website in February, according to Boardman police officer David Sheely.

“The posts seem politically motivated and also I saw a post about him being accepted into an ROTC program in Alabama,” Sheely wrote.

Olsen, who turned 18 in May, wrote he could not wait “… to start stockpiling weapons,” while posing on the chat room.

FBI agents and members of the Mahoning Valley Violent Crime Taskforce obtained a search warrant for the Presidential Court home on Wednesday, and no one was home.

Agents were told by neighbors that Olsen had moved to his father’s home in the 700 block of Oakridge Drive. He was arrested at that site, a police report states.

Olsen, after being arrested, told investigators he created the online page and admitted authoring several posts, according to a police report. He also stated he wrote, “in conclusion, shoot every federal agent in sight.”

However, he added, all of it was a joke that was for fun, and (it) was his “(expletive) account.”

After obtaining a new search warrant for the Oakridge Drive residence, law enforcement officials found multiple boxes of firearm ammunition and various firearms.

Officers and agents seized numerous handguns and long guns as evidence. They also took a laptop computer, Apple iPad and as Apple iPhone.

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