Sports fans have long known that ESPN’s comments section is not a pretty place to be. But it reached a new low Tuesday, when one commenter’s remarks became threatening enough to warrant his arrest.
Police said Eric Yee, of Santa Clarita, Calif., got out of hand in the comments section of a post about a new LeBron James-themed sneaker that costs $270. Yee wrote “that he could see children from where he was at and had no problem murdering them,” and alluded to the July 20 mass shooting at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater, the Los Angeles Daily News reported. The comments appear to have since been deleted.
Yee, 21, lives at home with his parents. Police said they knocked on the door when they came for his arrest, but Lee was home alone and didn’t hear because he was playing a computer game with headphones on.
In addition to taking his computer, police said they uncovered several handguns and “at least one high-capacity-type weapon.”
It’s unclear how, exactly, Los Angeles police were able to identify Yee. He made comments within a few hours of when ESPN posted the story Thursday evening. A site moderator in Bristol, Conn., where ESPN is located, contacted his local police. Bristol cops were able to, presumably through Yee’s Internet protocol (IP) address, identify his zip code, and informed police there Monday morning.
Lt. Steve Low of the L.A. Sheriff’s Department declined to tell the Daily Dot how they found Yee after the tip from Bristol. “I’m not going to go into how we identified who it was,” he said.
Yee’s bail was set at $1 million Tuesday morning.
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