ESPN Commenter Arrested Over Death Threats

Just because you can say something online does not mean you should say it. That was the lesson 21-year-old Yale dropout Eric Yee learned this week when his ESPN death threats led to his arrest.

Yee visited the ESPN.com website and commented that he would be willing to kill kids who buy LeBron James’ over-priced sneakers.

The Yale dropout make the comment on ESPN.com after reading a story about the high priced shoes. Moderators realizing a threat was made called police who tracked Lee down and found him in possession of an illegal firearm.

At this time, it is unclear which charges if any Yee will face for his actions.

While the actual comment posted by Yee has long been deleted, it was paraphrased by police as follows:

“Was watching children and wouldn’t mind murdering them.”

In bad taste, Yee also mentioned the Aurora massacre.

Speaking to LA Weekly, an ESPN spokesman admitted that the police paraphrase is accurate.

In his defense, Yee’s lawyer says everyone is taking his clients comments too seriously. Barry Petchesky at Deadspin writes that the reaction to the post is “probably a little overreaction to a dumbass posting stuff on a message board,” while he adds, “But perhaps this is the best and only way to punish comment section stupidity.”

Yee is being held on $1 million bond.

In the meantime, we could probably get quite a few people arrested at Inquisitr if we reported all of the hateful attacks that never make it through our moderation system.

Do you think internet threats should be taken seriously by law enforcement?