A Massachusetts man accused of making threats on Facebook to kill United States President Donald Trump was arrested on Wednesday after a stand-off with law enforcement in which the man began brandishing a sword.

Andrew Emerald, 45, was charged in an eight-count indictment filed in federal court in Springfield, Massachusetts, over a string of threatening posts he allegedly made last year, including one in which he vowed to travel to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida if the president was not dead by 2026.

“Either Trump is dead and in the ground by 2026, or I am hunting him down and putting him there,” Emerald wrote in another social media post in May 2025, according to the indictment.

A lawyer for Emerald did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

His Facebook posts came to the FBI’s attention as a result of a tip from a citizen who had warned Emerald that it was a crime to threaten the life of the president, according to documents prosecutors filed seeking to have him detained.

Emerald replied that he had been threatening Trump online for a decade and that, if law enforcement came after him, “I’ll kill them until they kill me,” according to an affidavit from an FBI agent.

When the FBI on Wednesday went to his residence in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to execute an arrest warrant, Emerald refused to come out before eventually stepping into view brandishing a long, metallic sword, the affidavit said.

The FBI agent said Emerald had previously referenced his sword in Facebook posts threatening Trump, including in July 2025, when he said he would stick it through the president’s throat.

Emerald told agents they would need to shoot him before locking his door, the FBI agent recounted.

Local police and an FBI crisis negotiation team were called in. He finally agreed to be arrested after a police officer reached him on his phone, the FBI agent’s affidavit said.

CHICOPEE, Mass. (WWLP) – Jewish families in western Massachusetts and across the world are preparing to observe the eight-day festival of Passover starting at sundown Wednesday. The holiday commemorates the biblical story of Exodus and the Israelites’ liberation from slavery in Egypt.

The festival is also known as Pesach and the Festival of Unleavened Bread, according to the National Day Calendar. Its date changes annually because it is set according to the first full moon in the Hebrew calendar month of Nissan.

The roots of the holiday are found in the Old Testament. While traditionally a Jewish observance, many Christians have also begun participating in Passover celebrations.

The holiday starts with the Passover Seder, which is a ritual feast. The event includes reading, singing, washing hands, drinking wine, and eating specific foods.

A traditional Seder meal includes roasted lamb, flatbread called matzah, bitter herbs like horseradish, and vegetables dipped in saltwater. These items are arranged on a Seder plate.

The food and wine are ingested in a specific order during the meal. The procedure is written in a book called the Haggadah, which also includes the consumption of four cups of wine.

All facts in this report were gathered by journalists employed by WWLP. Artificial intelligence tools were used to reformat information into a news article for our website. This report was edited and fact-checked by WWLP staff before being published.