Updated, 1/29/2025: Charges against Brian Hulsen were dismissed in 2016. A New York district court of appeals dismissed the case and cited that the alleged threat was not "imminent" because the school did not plan to fire him. The "imminent" language was, at that time, a requirement in New York state statute that had to be proven in order to convict someone of making a terroristic threat. The New York Supreme Court upheld the lower court's dismissal in 2017.
In 2022, the New York State Legislature and the state's governor, citing Hulsen's case, changed state law and established the crime of making a threat of mass harm that did not include the "imminent" requirement.
The original story continues below:
Police have arrested a Long Island, New York, school custodian on a charge of making a terroristic threat.
A criminal complaint alleges 40-year-old Brian Hulsen of Bethpage alluded in the threat last Friday in a school faculty room to planning to copy the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High Shool.
The Oyster Bay-East Norwich school district posted a statement on its website saying Hulsen has been suspended and that his master key has been confiscated.
Hulsen was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home. The complaint says police confiscated two assault rifles and one shotgun.
He was arraigned Friday in Nassau County district court in Hempstead on the misdemeanor charge and was freed on $5,000 bail.
His attorney, Joseph Lo Piccolo, called the charges "over-reaching" and said his client made no direct threats.
