Family of Man Shot by FBI: He Wasn't Really a Threat

The family of the armed Utah man shot and killed by FBI agents after he reportedly made violent threats against President Joe Biden said he would "never commit any act of violence against another human being over a political or philosophical disagreement."

Special agents were trying to serve a warrant on the home of Craig Deleeuw Robertson, 75, in Provo, south of Salt Lake City, when the shooting happened at 6:15 a.m., the FBI said in a statement.

Robertson was armed at the time of the shooting, according to two law enforcement sources who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity, due to the ongoing investigation.

Robertson posted online Monday that he had heard Biden was coming to Utah and he was planning to dig out a camouflage suit and begin "cleaning the dust off the M24 sniper rifle," a post that came after months of graphic online threats against several public figures, according to court documents.

Robertson referred to himself as a "MAGA Trumper," a reference to former President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan, and also posted threats against top law enforcement officials overseeing court cases against Trump.

"There was very little he could do but exercise his First Amendment right to free speech," Robertson's family said in the statement.

"Craig loved this country with all his heart," the family said in a statement.

"He saw it as a God-inspired and God-blessed land of liberty. He was understandably frustrated and distraught by the present and ongoing erosions to our constitutionally protected freedoms and the rights of free citizens wrought by what he, and many others in this nation, observed to be a corrupt and overreaching government. As an elderly–and largely homebound–man, there was very little he could do but exercise his First Amendment right to free speech and voice his protest in what has become the public square of our age — the internet and social media," they added.

"Though his statements were intemperate at times, he has never, and would never, commit any act of violence against another human being over a political or philosophical disagreement."