On July 30th a Missoula man was arrested for a social media post he made last October. Since the social media post was directed at someone from another state, the FBI was involved. Now this 37 year old man is facing a felony and will likely be extradited at some point to Boston.
Here’s a portion of the press release from United States Attorney’s Office:
A Montana man who allegedly threatened to kill a Massachusetts resident was arrested yesterday.
Matthew Shelley, 37, of Missoula, Montana, was indicted on July 23, 2026, by a federal grand jury in Boston with one count of transmitting a threatening communication in interstate commerce. Shelley is scheduled to have an initial appearance and detention hearing in the District of Montana on Aug. 3, 2026. He will appear in Boston at a later date.
According to court documents, on Oct. 18, 2025, Shelly used X (formerly Twitter) to threaten a Massachusetts resident.: He allegedly wrote, “You work for k|kes who murdered my family family. I will kill you.”
What I find strange about this case is the near-total silence from local media. It’s been a full week since Shelley made his initial appearance from the Missoula County jail and there’s nothing from the Missoulian, KPAX, NBC Montana, or the Missoula Current.
Why?
Ten years ago local media had NO PROBLEM reporting on a mentally ill snowboarder when an anti-gun advocate had him arrested in Montana. That anti-gun advocate, Jonathan Hutson, even flew out to Montana in order to see the young man appear in court, then complained to local media when the outcome didn’t go his way:
David Joseph Lenio, who allegedly threatened on social media to kill local schoolchildren and Jewish leaders, will not face charges related to the threats if he steers clear of trouble for the next two years.
His public defender, Brent Getty, filed a deferred prosecution agreement Friday that would lead to a felony charge of intimidation being dropped if Lenio breaks no laws in that time.
Flathead County Attorney Ed Corrigan signed off on the agreement.
The man who uncovered the alleged threats, alerted law enforcement and flew to Montana to encourage the Flathead County Attorney’s Office to pursue felony charges, was disappointed with the news.
“The state of Montana is re-arming a man who threatened to massacre school kids and religious leaders,” said Jonathan Hutson of Maryland, a former spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
When I wrote about this case at 4&20 Blackbirds I quoted Rachel Rivas, the director of the Montana Human Rights Network at the time. This was, of course, long before I connected Rachel and her former “non-profit” (rebranded as Catalyst Montana) to the Southern Poverty Law Center scandal.
Here’s a screenshot from my post showing how I covered Rachel Rivas’ attempt to exploit this case to serve her organization’s own political agenda over a decade ago:
When Jonathan Hutson and Rachel Rivas didn’t get the felony charges they they were hoping for in order to maximize the political usefulness for their respective organizations, Hutson’s response was to declare WHITE PRIVILEGE, as “reported” by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s own website:
What’s the difference between then and now? Is the difference a depleted financial capacity by the kind of political organizations supporting Hutson and Rivas? Did the Southern Poverty Law Center scandal and USAID funding hits have narrative control ripple effects reaching all the way into Big Sky country?
There is another story about a local crime going unreported because THIS TIME, when flags were recently torn down from the Import/Export market in downtown Missoula, the culprit is suspected to be someone who is a PART OF the LGBTQ+ community, not hate-crime-targeting them.
Two years ago the story–the one that DID get local media attention–was VERY differfent:
Pride month is the celebration of diversity and equity for members of the LGBTQ+ community, and many downtown Missoula businesses celebrate. But one local business was a target of alleged hate crime this week.
Vandals recently removed and then destroyed Pride flags from a downtown Missoula business. Import Market reports on Instagram the flags were removed, torn up, and then defecated on.
When a black man by the name of Sean Stevenson was euthanized by the Missoula County Sheriff’s Office in 2020, I didn’t understand the power of narrative control, so I had a hard time fathoming the non-response from official media platforms, “progressive” non-profits, and that one white professor teaching African Studies who fled Missoula this year like a punk-ass bitch when his grift dried up.
Well, now I know better.
In fact, I’m so well-versed on narrative control I’ve maintained an ability to make important distinctions between THREATS and ACTIONS that I hope to help others understand so they don’t confuse a citizen journalist experiencing lawfare to whatever scary things are being said to Alani Bankhead behind the scenes.
As a non-partisan, hyper-local citizen journalist, I do see Sam as an ally in holding local bad actors accountable, but in this case I had to make a distinction that what I’m going through is far beyond mere “threats” of retaliation, which first arrived in my in-box over three years ago when I attempted to exit a toxic relationship with someone who made in-roads into Sam’s own organization.
Threats to take legal action against me for a breakup couldn’t have become legal actions taken against me over the past 3 years without the help of a system funding the careers of alleged professionals who want MORE of your tax money to grow their punitive protection racket, and they’re going to get it because local media is occupied territory, like Vichy France.
If you appreciate all this context to a local story being nationally reported that no one in local media has gotten around to acknowledging yet, consider making a donation to my new GoFundMe page. Any little bit helps.
Thanks for reading!
