Days before yesterday’s Super Tuesday primaries, a deranged leftist, Benjamin Matthew Dayton, told his mother he wanted to bomb Trump supporters in Tennessee.
Podcaster Steven Crowder reported on his X feed and website today that the FBI had notified Tennessee’s Department of Homeland Security about Dayton, which in turn published an officer safety bulletin to apprise state and local authorities of the threat.
And Dayton, apparently, wasn’t kidding. His Instagram page features a video of an old Army handbook for making bombs.
More than half a million Volunteer Staters went to the polls yesterday.
The Bulletin
The Memphis FBI office told the state’s security bureau that it had a Guardian Incident Report about Dayton, an hirsute 29-year-old leftist. The FBI told the agency on February 29, six days before Tennesseans went to the polls on Super Tuesday.
The report came out of the FBI’s eGuardian reporting system that tracks terror threats.
“DAYTON made concerning statements to his mother via text message. One of the messages stated ‘Have been thinking an awful lot about rigging my van and bombing trump supporters,’” the department said.
Dayton, apparently, is mentally unstable:
An initial investigation revealed that DAYTON has experienced suicidal and homicidal ideations and also mentioned trying to obtain a firearm…. Initial investigation has also revealed that DAYTON has an active Order of Protection issued in Waukegan, Illinois. DAYTON criminal history indicated previous arrests for public drunkenness and domestic battery incidents. According to the subject’s parents, he suffers from unspecified mental health diagnoses. DAYTON has several addresses associated with him in the Memphis/Shelby County area. At this time, the subject is believed to be transient and has no known address.
The bulletin said Dayton drives a 1995 tan Chevy G20 van — plate No. EB55086.
Police surveillance cameras photographed the van in Shelby County “as recently as 02/28/2024,” the bulletin said.
The bulletin urged police to “exercise caution” if they run into Dayton, but then “no detention of the above subject or vehicle should be made solely based on this bulletin” despite the threat of mass murder.
Instead, police were to contact a department special agent, Andrew Cannito. He confirmed the bulletin for Crowder but would not discuss it.
From the looks of Dayton, exercising caution is good advice.
Army Handbook
Crowder also pointed to Dayton’s Instagram page, username bendaytonmusic.
It features a video that shows pages 33, 133, and 233 of the U.S. Army’s Improvised Munitions Handbook, published in 1969.
The 256-page manual shows how to make improvised explosives and munitions.
“In unconventional warfare operations, it may be impossible or unwise to use conventional military munitions as tools in the conduct of certain missions,” the manual’s introduction explains:
It may be necessary instead to fabricate the required munitions from locally available or unassuming materials. The purpose of this manual is to increase the potential of Special Forces and guerilla troops by describing in detail the manufacture of munitions from seemingly innocuous locally available materials.
The manual explains how to make black powder, plastic-explosive filler, fertilizer explosives, incendiary devices, methyl nitrate dynamite, fuses and detonators, mines and grenades, and more.
The book also describes primary high explosives such as mercury fulminate, and secondary high explosives such as dynamite and nitroglycerin.
“legit tired of being civil,” he wrote. “Will you vote genocide or fascism?”
The video also says “flood the system” and “spook the watchlists,” and features a Palestinian flag.
An image at the account shows his van with “From the River to the Sea,” along with a peace symbol, written on the back windows.
That post contains this message: “wonder how the shrapnel feels.”
Another image is a headline from the BBC: “Israel-Gaza war: More than 100 reported killed in crowd near Gaza aid convoy.”
All that suggests that Dayton is or was ready to start a one-man war against Trump supporters, or perhaps supporters of Israel given the Palestinian flag.
Almost 600,000 people voted in the GOP primary on Super Tuesday.
Had Dayton packed his “Vandalorian” with explosives and detonated the bomb at a polling station, it would have been a Black Tuesday.
