HUNTINGTON, Emery County — An Emery County man was arrested Wednesday after police say he made threats to shoot people at the upcoming BYU-Utah football game.
Christopher Tai Justice, 28, of Huntington, was booked into the Emery County Jail for investigation of making a threat of violence and obstruction of justice.
Tuesday night, someone on X, formerly Twitter, made several posts under @juiceisloose328 such as “Nah, anyone wearing red on Saturday is getting shot,” “enjoy a bullet to the head,” “Any Ute fan (I) see is dead. Mark my words” and “I’ll never forget the amount of hatred I felt for Utah sitting front row for the 54-10 beat down in 2011.”
The account later posted, “I apologize for the awful tweets. I’m logging off and deactivating now.”
By Wednesday, the account was “locked.” But not before several concerned people contacted police. That prompted an investigation that included local, state and federal authorities.
Wednesday, the Emery County Sheriff’s Office was contacted by the Statewide Information and Analysis Center with the Utah Department of Public Safety after linking Justice to the alleged threat “to shoot Utes fans at the upcoming BYU vs Utah game,” according to a police booking affidavit. “(The state) told me that Tai had switched his account to private and had deleted most of the messages.”
A deputy, along with Justice’s probation officer, went to his home. Justice initially claimed “that he had deleted Twitter almost over a year ago and that he would never say anything like that,” the affidavit states.
However, the probation officer located the X app on his iPad.
Then, after linking the account with his cellphone, the probation officer “went through his phone and found some texts between him and a friend talking about the account in question. In the messages, they discuss deactivating the account. At one point in the conversation, Tai tells his friend, ‘I’ll say I didn’t post them or it’s not my account if it goes this far’ when talking about being confronted by the police,” the affidavit alleges.
When confronted with this information, Justice allegedly admitted to making the social media posts. “He then told us that he lied to us because he was scared of what could happen,” the affidavit says.
Justice, who has a history of driving on a revoked license or while intoxicated, according to court records, was on probation at the time of his arrest Wednesday after being convicted of DUI for the second time in less than 10 years.