This past Friday, law enforcement officials out of the state of Arkansas took one Diamond Arnold-Johnson, the Democrat nominee for Arkansas auditor, into custody on charges of first-degree terroristic threats.
The husband of Arnold-Johnson was on trial this past August over allegedly sending out terroristic threats on Facebook, explained police officials. Throughout the trial, 32-year-old Arnold-Johnson fully admitted that she, not her husband, actually put out the heavily threatening posts across Facebook which led to the issuing of criminal charges, KATV explained in a report.
A warrant was served for the arrest of Arnold-Johnson back on the 13th of October, but she outright refused to go with officers and forced a SWAT team to be dispatched to deal with the issue.
However, police stated that the choice to cancel the use of the SWAT team was to force compliance out of Arnold-Johnson in an apparent attempt to not push an overly explosive situation exploding directly before the midterm elections.
“The situation continued to intensify and the decision was made not to escalate a non-violent situation, only to serve a non-violent warrant,” explained police officials.
The Arkansas Democratic Party issued a response to the outlets by stating that people needed to be held directly accountable for their actions.
“Earlier today, we were made aware that Diamond Arnold-Johnson was arrested by Little Rock Police. Everyone has the right to due process; however, our Party firmly believes people must be held accountable for any criminal behavior, especially candidates for public office,” expressed the party via its release. “The Democratic Party of Arkansas did not recruit her to run for Auditor of State, and we cannot bar her from running for this position. We remain focused on working for a better Arkansas and winning races across the state.”
The Republican candidate running for Auditor of State, Dennis Milligan, labeled Arnold-Johnson to officially drop out of the race in a statement expressed on Saturday, claiming that she “is unfit to hold the office.”
“I feel it is in the best interest of the people of this state that she withdraw her nomination,” he stated. “If she chooses not to do so, then I would call on the state Democrat Party to repudiate and distance themselves from her as their nominee for Auditor of State.”
“Anyone who has an active felony warrant for their arrest should not be running for office or handling the state’s very important financial business,” he went on. “In our debate on Arkansas PBS and in her written responses to the Democrat Gazette, Mrs. Arnold-Johnson talks about being ‘transparent and ethical.’ Where was her ethics or transparency in not coming forward and telling the citizens of Arkansas of her past involvement with law enforcement and past convictions?”
