(Image via New York Times)
Staff Editor: Vivian Galindo
Email: vivian.galindo@umassd.edu
Someone was arrested for posting a TikTok requesting Pam Bondi’s head for $45,000.
Tyler Maxon Avalos, a supposed 29-year-old from St. Paul, Minnesota, was arrested after reports of a video where they offered $45,000 for Pam Bondi. The message read, “DEAD OR ALIVE (PREFERABLY DEAD)” and quickly reached the FBI through an anonymous tip.
Avalos’ TikTok page had 79 followers, and it’s believed the video was viewed around two dozen times, with 6 likes and 7 comments.
Despite seeming to some like the edgy postings common to the Internet’s many corners, the video underwent a full FBI investigation.
The FBI justified the serious nature of the threats by citing the creator’s identity as an anarchist as well as references to the famous abolitionist John Brown, who is known for his attempts at starting a slave rebellion.
It is reported as a “murder-for-hire” plot.
Let’s discuss a similar example and draw comparisons: the Young Republican group chat.
In October of 2025, over 29,000 messages from January to August of the same year were leaked from a Telegram group chat between members of the Young Republican National Federation.
In these leaks were some of the most heinous things you can find on the Internet: support of Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust, racial slurs and references to slavery, threats of murdering their political opponents, and more.
The group chat had messages from a number of people, not just one. Additionally, the threats were equally as serious, including threats to rape and kill political opponents.
Some of the members of the group chat were elected government officials, such as Vermont state senator Samuel Douglass.
The general Republican Party did try to condemn the group chat and what it stood for. Vice President J.D. Vance, however, did no such thing.
Vance pulled out the classic “boys will be boys” attitude, stating a “person seriously wishing for political violence and political assassination is 1,000 times worse than what a bunch of young people, a bunch of kids say in a group chat, however offensive it might be.”
However, members of this group chat ranged from 18 to 40, just one year younger than Vance himself.
Another important name in the list of those in the group chat is Trump official Michael Bartels of the U.S. Small Business Administration. It is unknown if he has, or will, face any consequences.
It seems that the lesson to be learned is that multiple people with political aspirations threatening political opponents and calling for rape and murder is less serious than a single anarchist making a single post that got 20 views.
The reporting of the alleged “murder-for-hire” is never consistent, either. His age is either stated as 29 or 30, and The New York Times mentions that “the account owner use[s] gender-neutral pronouns” but still exclusively has he/him pronouns in all of their reporting.
Regardless, the FBI has much work to do.