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Cumming teen charged with threatening Alpharetta synagogue
Police

ALPHARETTA — A Cumming teenager has been arrested after he reportedly made terroristic threats to an Alpharetta synagogue that included offering to sell people-sized furnaces and claiming he would murder the congregation.

Alpharetta police would not release the name of the 15-year-old, who is considered a juvenile suspect. The felony charges will be handled by Fulton County Juvenile Court.

Officers traced the teen’s cell phone to a voicemail left Feb. 4 with Congregation Gesher L' Torah in Alpharetta.

According to an Alpharetta police report, the caller identified himself as “Adolf” and called wondering whether the Jewish synagogue wanted “a few furnaces installed … I have the XL furnaces which will fit about 45 of you in, and I have the medium furnaces which only fit about 20.”

He offered chambers, tear gas, mustard gas and nova gas as additional options.

The message closed with, “So, am going to need you call me back so I know what to use on y’all. By the way, y’all are dirty … roaches and I will murder all of you … bye.”

According to the police report, the employee who reported the incident didn’t find the message until she answered a call a short time later from a man asking to delete the voicemail his friend had left.

Upon playing the message for the teen’s parents, both reportedly stated it was not their son’s voice. But according to the report, once the teen admitted he and his friends were responsible for the call, he told investigators it “was stupid and they did not mean to do it.”

Alpharetta police determined there was no threat of real violence to anyone in the congregation from the call.

In the report, the boy’s mother responded to the message by questioning whether “the police had nothing better to do and asked if we felt good about ourselves, adding that we were teenagers once.”

Gesher L’Torah’s board members met on Feb. 5, according to the police report, and decided to proceed with prosecution, after which investigators told the mother to bring her son into the police department.

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