Lucas Gerhard, a 21-year old Michigander, has been on house arrest at his father’s home for the last 2 years. His future career of being a police officer is in jeopardy over a pending 20-year felony charge of making a terrorist threat. He was unlawfully arrested and spent 83 days in jail. All because of a post he made on Snapchat. You can see the original article here by Patty McMurray of 100 Percent Fed Up
#FreeLucas: His Youth Has Been Stolen…His Rights Have Been Violated…His Future is In Question…One Of The Most Disturbing Cases Of Injustice You Will Ever Read
Since Lucas has been on house arrest, he’s been doing well according to his father, Col. Mark Gerhard. He’s done very well considering not having any access to internet, a smart phone, and not being able to go outside. During a pandemic. “Lucas is a very character-driven individual.” Mark said. However, as a father, he also goes on to say, “Seeing your son under these conditions..it pulls your heartstrings everyday because you want to see them progress and be successful. And he’s been prohibited from doing that.”
Lucas’ father reached out as a constituent to Rep. John Reilly (R) about the situation, who is drafting up a bill to help clarify what a “terrorist threat” is. Reilly referenced Gerhard Snapchatting a photo of his new AR-15, purchased lawfully with money he saved, in which he took a photo of while on summer break. The caption by Gerhard saying, “Takin this bad boy up. This outta make the snowflakes melt, aye? And I mean snowflakes as in snow.” Which Gerhard immediately checked upon returning to the university’s campus safety office. This was seen by a couple of students, whom took a screen capture and reported it to local police. “Right now it (Michigan’s anti-terrorist statute) isn’t as clear as it should be.” Reilly said, and mentioned there’s a problem when we have an individual taking that as a threat. “and now he’s basically being treated like a criminal. This is really a free speech issue, a first amendment issue is what this is all about.” and “Our country has gone to the point of no common sense.”
Rep. Matt Maddock, speaks in support of the bill. “In this situation, he’s a good kid. He comes from a great family. He obviously may have said something inappropriate to some people, but it’s no excuse to ruin this kid’s life.” and feels that setting a $250K bond is an example of a judge using bond as punishment and feels it’s preposterous.
Adam de Angeli, president of Rescue Michigan, was working for Rep. Reilly at the time they got the call in 2019. “Lucas had never threatened anybody. Not only were there absolutely no threat in the words, there was absolutely no intention behind it.” De Angeli goes on, “What brings us here today is that the Michigan Court of Appeals has done the absolute wrongest thing possible when this case was heard on appeal. And basically denied all the facts of the case and applied a faulty analysis of law that now exposes every single person in Michigan to the very same thing Lucas Gerhard is going through.” and that this declares open season on anyone making hyperbolic statements on social media.
De Angeli has started a GoFundMe account to help the family with their legal fees. To date, the fundraiser has about $78,500 raised of their $90k goal. Donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/2b485-justice-for-lucas
Written by Rachel Marcero
7/1/2021