By KRISTIE LINDEN
A man who was convicted of posting a threat to teachers on Facebook during the 2017 Ringgold School District teachers’ strike has lost his appeal.
George Shallenberger, 47, of Finleyville was sentenced to two to 23 months incarceration after he was convicted of one count of making terroristic threats with intent to terrorize another in Washington County Court in March 2019.
Shallenberger appealed his conviction in Pennsylvania Superior Court, where it was denied last week.
Shallenberger has not served any of his sentence yet, having been denied a request to serve time on weekends. He remains free on $150,000 bond.
In October 2017, Shallenberger allegedly wrote a post claiming teachers needed to find real jobs and calling them “snowflakes.”
In court documents, Shallenberger was accused of posting “Guns don’t kill people I kill people,” and “Happiness is a warm gun” on Nov. 8, 2017.
The next day, he allegedly wrote “easiest job in the world but they need more money. Shoot them all and start over” as part of a long thread of comments on a public Facebook page discussing the strike, which was in its third week at the time.
When Ringgold Police Chief Clayton Shell was alerted to the posts, he sent officers to guard the teachers on picket lines at all four district buildings, he testified at a preliminary hearing. Shell testified he “absolutely” believed the post that stated “shoot them all and start over” was a threat directed at the teachers on strike.
Shallenberger’s attorney throughout the proceedings has been Neil Marcus. In that preliminary hearing, Marcus said Shallenberger was simply “spouting off” and “saying something stupid in the heat of the moment.”
Marcus also referred to the charges against his client as “political correctness run amok.”
At his trial, Shallenberger testified the posts “Guns don’t kill people I kill people,” and “Happiness is a warm gun” had nothing to do with the Ringgold teachers. Instead, Shallenberger testified “Happiness is a Warm Gun” is a Beatles song and he is a fan who heard the song the same day.
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