On Sunday, Juneau police arrested Mitchell Watley in connection with notes posted around town that malign the transgender community and “contained a possible threat against children.”
Watley is widely known as the illustrator of the popular Alaska children’s book “I Would Tuck You In.”
He’s being charged with terroristic threatening – a felony.
On Friday, notes were left in Foodland IGA and in the State Office Building. Two more were left in Juneau’s Costco over the weekend. Juneau police were able to use Costco’s surveillance system to track the person who posted the notes back to a car. They then traced the license plates on the car to Watley.
When police arrested Watley, he confessed.
Juneau police credited the FBI for helping with the arrest.
“Anytime there’s a potential threat like this, and it comes across, we try to partner with any resources we can,” Lt. Krag Campbell said.
At Watley’s arraignment on Monday, Assistant District Attorney Rexene Finley said Watley put Juneau residents in fear.
“He left these in places where people go shopping with their children,” she said.
She said he intimidated the trans community as well as families with children in schools.
“Mr. Watley has threatened to shoot our most vulnerable populations,” Finley said.
The judge set a $10,000 cash bond for Watley and required that he hand in all firearms and stay away from schools and parks in Juneau as conditions of release from Lemon Creek Correctional Center, where he has been held since his arrest.
A preliminary hearing in the case is set for April 11.
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