The Marietta woman shot and killed Christmas morning for attacking a police officer had been arrested last month for threatening a New York state senator , FBI officials confirmed Monday.
While self-proclaimed Muslim Jacquelyn "Jameela" Cecila Barnette reportedly sent mail of an anti-semitic nature to U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), she was arrested in November on accusations that she sent a "suspicious" package to New York state Sen. Greg Ball, FBI spokesman Stephen Emmett
"Ms. Barnette was the subject of an investigation involving a suspicious package sent to state Sen. Ball ... out of Albany, N.Y.," Emmett said.
Barnette, 53, was released on her own recognizance on Nov. 10 and ordered by a federal judge to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, according to court documents obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Ball's office, through a statement released Monday morning, would only acknowledge Barnette's death.
"Our office has been alerted that Jameela Barnette was killed in Georgia on Christmas," the statement read.
Sunday morning, police were called to her home in the Bexley apartment complex.
Police spokesman Dana Pierce said officers responded to an alarm at the complex in the 300 block of Penny Lane S.E. at about 11 a.m. Sunday. While at the apartments, officers were notified of a second alarm inside the same apartment.
The woman who answered the apartment door, Barnette, was armed with a knife and a handgun and attacked a police officer, said Pierce in a press release. The officer fired his weapon to stop the assault, said Pierce.
Barnette died at the scene.
The officer involved in the shooting was treated for his injury at the apartment complex. He has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into the shooting.
Emmett would not comment Monday on the shooting, but said that Barnette was targeted by federal authorities when she sent a package to Ball's office in April.
"Based on the contents of the package and the remarks on the exterior of the package, Ms. Barnette was indicted by a federal grand jury," he said.
She was charged with mailing threatening communications and false information and hoaxes, both felonies.
The indictment said the package contained a vial of unknown liquid labeled "Zyklon B," a cyanide-based pesticide that was used in Nazi extermination camps to kill Jews before and during World War II.
The package also included a stuffed Curious George doll with two Stars of David taped to it and a note that read, "Final destination: Auschwitz."
Barnette addressed the accompanying letter, obtained from court records, to " ... Dead Man Walking," and launched into a curse-filled rant against Jews and Christians.
Barnette told the Albany, N.Y., Fox affiliate that she didn't agree with hearings he and King were hosting in March on the "radicalization" of American Muslims.
The package, she told WXXA News, was "to let him know how I felt about his racist hearings ... He's vulnerable! He keeps messing with Muslims. Muslims have not been harassing anyone."
Barnette said that she meant no harm to Ball.
"I don't want people to think I'm a dangerous person," she said admitting the vial was a hoax. "It's just perfume oil."
More than a week before Ball's office received his package from Barnette, one reportedly was sent to King containing a letter with more threatening language and a bloody pig's foot.
The package to King was intercepted by Capitol Hill officials before he received it.
Emmett said the FBI is aware of that package.
"But on it's surface, it didn't rise to the same level as the package sent to Sen. Ball," he said.
Earlier this month, Barnette's attorney Vionnette Johnson filed a motion to dismiss the indictment claiming her client's speech in the letter to Ball is protected by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, and that the federal law against hoaxes is too vague and broad.
Police are asking that anyone with information about this caseat 770-499-3945.
-- Dispatch editor George Mathis contributed to this article.
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