Dec 5, 2017 3 min read

The lawyer for a Union Township man said Tuesday the social media posts that resulted in criminal charges against his client were “stupid remarks made out of frustration (by) somebody who’s been up all night working.”

“I say again, how many times have you said, ‘Oh, I could just kill my neighbor.’ ‘Oh, I could just hurt somebody,'” Neil Marcus told reporters. “That’s all this is.”

Marcus was speaking after District Judge James Ellis ordered Marcus’s client, George J. Shallenberger, 44, to stand trial on two counts of terroristic threats. The charges – a felony and a misdemeanor – stem from posts Shallenberger made from Oct. 6 and Nov. 9 in which he allegedly threatened Ringgold School District teachers.

That period overlapped with a strike by the district’s roughly 210 teachers from Oct. 18 until classes resumed Nov. 22.

Assistant District Attorney Rachel Wheeler argued the prosecution had met the necessary burden to proceed with the charges. She said the alleged threats were against “a specific group of people,” namely district teachers, and noted some stopped picketing because of the posts.

“It caused people to evacuate the picket line,” she said during her closing argument.

Ringgold police Chief Clayton Shell testified he learned about the posts Nov. 9. He and Monongahela city police Officer Kevin Harris, who filed the charges that day, testified a user with Shallenberger’s name made two posts in a discussion thread about the strike on a local-interest Facebook page that day.

“Let’s raise taxes for these worthless (expletive)!! …They sure have nice cars for not making any money. D Bags.” Shortly afterward, he wrote, “Easiest job in the world but they need more money. Shoot them and start over.”

Shell said he sent the two officers working at each of the four district schools outside to the picket lines to notify teachers, most of whom were already aware of the posts. He went himself to Ringgold Elementary School South, where one of his officers was off sick, finding “numerous teachers” stopped picketing and gone inside the building.

Tamera Gaffey, a school counselor for Ringgold South, testified others drove home. She said some never returned to the picket lines after they learned about those posts.

Shallenberger was arrested that day. He is now free on $150,000 percentage bond as he fights the charges. The father of three district students didn’t respond to reporters as he left the hearing. Marcus said his client lost his welding job because of the case.

The earlier posts cited during testimony and in court papers still appear on Shallenberger’s Facebook page.

In an Oct. 6 post, Shallenberger wrote teachers “need to get real jobs” and called them “snowflakes.”

On Nov. 8, he wrote, “Guns don’t kill people. I kill people,” the message read. He quickly added another post with an apparent reference to both firearms and a Beatles song: “Happiness is a warm gun.”

Wheeler maintained the posts constituted threats, saying at one point they “speak for themselves.”

She also asked Shell if anyone else in the discussion thread had suggested “we should shoot them all and start over.” He replied in the negative.

Marcus didn’t dispute his client was responsible for the posts. But he contended they were “broad, vague” expressions of opinion. He elicited testimony from witnesses the posts didn’t mention a specific teacher or group of teachers by name.

“My client never threatened anyone,” he said later in the hearing. “He made some statements that in retrospect are stupid.”