By Michael Hasch

Published: Thursday, February 28, 2013, 12:01 a.m.
Updated: Thursday, February 28, 2013

A homeless Pittsburgh man, accused of making a series of threatening phone calls to police officers in Washington County and Minnesota, and giving the Secret Service a letter that threatened President Obama, was found sitting in a North Side library, surfing the Internet.

James Bradley Hoop, 57, was taken into custody on Tuesday evening in the Carnegie Library on Woods Run Avenue by Pittsburgh police Officers Anthony Beatty and Paul Abel, who had received information that Hoop was often there.

Hoop was arraigned Wednesday on warrants charging him with making terroristic threats to a state policeman in Washington County and several officers in Burnsville, Minn., where Dakota County authorities want him extradited. Hoop remains in the Allegheny County Jail.

According to the complaints:

Hoop came to the Secret Service office in Pittsburgh in October, carrying two cans of pepper spray and a letter written by someone else that threatened the president. He called back later, threatening to shoot anyone who came looking for him.

He called state police in October, threatening a trooper. He laughed and whispered the word “homicide” in the calls to Burnsville, saying he was off his medicine and that he and his brother were professional shooters who had two squads of men coming to Minnesota.

Michael Hasch is a staff writer for Trib Total Media.

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