The police chief who led the law enforcement response to this month’s attack on a Reform temple in Michigan says he has been deluged with more than 330,000 hostile messages since the incident, including death threats, violent rhetoric and a torrent of antisemitic content falsely portraying him as Jewish.

Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard disclosed the figure during a briefing hosted by the Secure Community Network, a national Jewish security organization, where he and other officials sounded the alarm about the escalating threat environment facing American Jews.

Bouchard, who is not Jewish, described receiving messages across social media and through direct channels, many of them laced with violent threats. He played a recording of one voicemail for the assembled security officials in which a caller berates him as a “Jew lover” before adding: “I hope you put a gun in your mouth and kill yourself.”

Social media platforms have been flooded with manipulated images depicting Bouchard as an Orthodox Jew, complete with a Star of David superimposed on his forehead, accompanied by antisemitic rhetoric.

“It’s rampant out there and apparently we struck a nerve with a lot of folks,” Bouchard said. “We’re in an environment I’ve never seen, and I’ve been in this business for a very long time.”

Jewish organizations have praised Bouchard for his handling of the attack and for his outspoken defense of the community in its aftermath. The sheriff made clear he has no intention of backing down. “If you target our Jewish community, we’re going to stand in front of them to protect them,” he said.

Bouchard also described taking his commanders to a Holocaust education center, calling the role of Nazi police officers in rounding up Jews a “chilling reminder” of where tolerance of antisemitism can lead. “You get there by tolerating it, by accepting it,” he said.

The briefing drew a wide range of Jewish and non-Jewish security officials, including Matthew Kozma, Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the US Department of Homeland Security. Participants repeatedly warned of a high and growing threat level against American Jewish communities, urging Jewish institutions to heighten security precautions and maintain close coordination with law enforcement.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)