Jewish Kansas state House candidate was arrested as teenager for threatening to shoot female student
Aaron Coleman Image by youtube
(JTA) — Aaron Coleman, the 20-year-old Jewish student and Democratic nominee for a state House seat in Kansas, was arrested in 2015 for threatening to shoot a female student at a local high school.
The revelations about the arrest further detail Coleman’s history of harassing woman.
This summer, Coleman admitted to calling a girl fat and telling her to kill herself. The girl told the Kansas City Star that she did in fact attempt suicide.
Coleman also blackmailed a second girl, threatening to disclose a nude photo of her unless she sent her more. When the girl did not comply, Coleman released the photo. A third woman told the newspaper that he harassed her “for months.”
Coleman was 14 when he threatened to shoot the female student, the Star reported on Saturday. He was charged with a felony for making a criminal threat and later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of harassment.
Coleman was being homeschooled at the time, but sent a text message saying he would shoot the girl, who had reportedly posted a revealing photo of Coleman on social media. Coleman told the Star that he wanted to hurt himself and did not have access to a firearm when he made the threat.
Following his August primary win for the state representative seat in Kansas House District 37, Coleman said that he would drop out of the race over his past actions but then changed his mind. There is no Republican challenger in the race.
Coleman’s primary challenger, Stan Frownfelter, who currently holds the seat, has mounted a write-in campaign.
If Coleman wins the election, he would be the youngest member of the Kansas House of Representatives, and the only Jewish member.
Kansas Democrats have mostly disavowed Coleman.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Coleman wrote: “If my opponent should be forgiven for his crimes against humanity which he hasn’t apologized for, (voting to: criminalize abortions, gut the EPA, prevent healthcare insurance of abortions, support the KXL pipeline), Should I be forgiven for my sins that I have apologized for?”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
