A 31-year-old Orlando man is facing charges after state investigators say he posted photos of a firearm, a residential community's location and threatening messages online, all aimed at a Jewish community in Glades County. Jerry Sneed was arrested Wednesday and booked into the Orange County Jail, accused of possessing the same firearm shown in the alleged posts at the moment agents took him into custody.
The investigation traces back to October 19, when Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents in Fort Myers received information about threatening social-media messages targeting the community, according to gulfcoastnewsnow.com. FDLE agents identified Sneed as the person behind the postings and, per the FOX 35 Orlando report, say he had posted several threatening messages directed at the community alongside images of its location and a gun. FDLE did not release the specific wording of the alleged messages.
Charges and Next Steps
Sneed is charged with written or electronic threats to kill, do bodily injury, or conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism, a crime defined under Florida Statutes section 836.10, along with unlawful use of a two-way communication device. He was arrested by the FDLE and the Orange County Sheriff's Office, the station's report notes, and his booking photo was pulled from the Orange County inmate database.
Sneed is expected to be extradited to Glades County for arraignment, though the timing of that transfer has not been made clear. The state attorney's office in Glades County is prosecuting the case, per the same account, and the investigation remains active.
A Broader Pattern of Antisemitic Incidents
The arrest comes as Florida continues to log elevated levels of antisemitic activity even as overall incident counts ease. The state recorded 319 antisemitic incidents in 2025, a 9.6% decrease from the year before, according to the Florida ADL. Yet within that overall decline, vandalism and physical assault hit decade-high marks, with 98 vandalism incidents and 10 physical assaults recorded statewide last year, while harassment incidents fell 28%, from 292 in 2024 to 211 in 2025.
Florida also ranked second nationally for antisemitic incidents targeting personal residences and third for incidents targeting Jewish institutions or schools, the organization found. Nationally, the ADL tracked 6,274 antisemitic incidents across the country in 2025 — 33% fewer than in 2024, but still five times higher than a decade earlier, averaging 17 incidents per day compared with eight per day between 2020 and 2022. The ADL also reported that three people were killed and at least 300 were victimized in antisemitic physical assaults nationwide in 2025, even as incidents at Jewish institutions fell 34% and bomb threats against those institutions dropped to 59 from 627 the year before.
FDLE is asking anyone with information on suspicious activity to report it through its website or by calling 855-FLA-SAFE, or to contact 911 in an emergency.
