By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
Some thoughts are better kept to yourself.
That’s what Craig Allen Shepperd, 37, of Whitehall, Md., hopefully learned.
Shepperd pleaded guilty to threatening to murder an ATF task force member pleaded guilty last Friday in Baltimore federal court.
“ATF agents, along other federal, state, and local law enforcement officers put their lives on the line everyday to reduce violent crime, and keep peace in our communities,” Mark Chait, ATF special agent in charge of the Baltimore office, said in a statement. “ATF will not tolerate anyone who threatens the peace of our citizens, or those who have sworn to protect them.”
The incident happened when the task force member visited Sheppard in the Baltimore County Jail. Shepperd was a suspect in the arson of a horse barn that burned down in Monkton, Md. on Aug. 26, 2010, authorities said. He was in the jail on a state indictment for arson.
Authorities say Shepperd became very agitated and told the ATF task force member that he was a marksman and a very good hunter and he would shoot the task force member in the head.
Shepperd stated that when he got out of jail he would would meet the ATF task force officer at at a restaurant and neither of them would come out alive.
Authorities said they also had recordings of conversations in which Shepperd made statements to an individual and his father repeating those threats to murder the ATF officer.
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