National Guardsman arrested for threatening to crash plane

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A member of the Ohio Army National Guard is accused of threatening to crash a stolen plane into the Anheuser-Busch plant on Columbus' North Side.

James Ricky Meade II, 26, of Chesterhill, Morgan County, has been charged in Franklin County Municipal Court with making a terroristic threat, a felony of the third degree.

Meade in December posted statements on social media in which he said he wanted to steal a plane and crash it into the Anheuser-Busch plant on Schrock Road, a Columbus police officer said in a complaint filed March 30 with the court.

A woman alerted law enforcement and the Ohio National Guard after seeing the posts, according to the complaint.

Meade was arrested Monday at his home in Chesterhill, located about 90 miles southeast of Columbus, by members of the Ohio Highway Patrol; the patrol's special response team; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and the Southern Ohio Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team, or SOFAST, according to Charles Sanso, a deputy supervisor for the U.S. Marshals Service who oversees SOFAST.

Meade was jailed in Zanesville and will eventually be transferred to Franklin County to face charges here, Sanso added.

Meade is the second Guard member to have been arrested and charged with making a terroristic threat in the past week.

Thomas Develin, 24, of Columbus' Northwest Side, was arrested March 30 and is charged with making threats toward the Columbus Torah Academy, a private school based in the Jewish faith located at 181 Noe Bixby Road. According to court records, Develin worked as a security guard at the East Side school.

Both men are still members of the Ohio Army National Guard, but their security clearances and any favorable actions, such as promotions or transfers, have been suspended, Beougher said.

Joel Marcovitch, president and CEO of the nonprofit JewishColumbus, said someone at the Columbus Division of Police has informed his organization that while Meade did not make a specific threat against a Jewish institution, he peddled in anti-Semitic tropes and spread hate online.