‘I’m coming for her’: Man who threatened Wichita mayor was mad about food stamps
The man charged last month with making threatening statements targeting Wichita Mayor Lily Wu was upset with her over a delay in processing his application for food stamps “and decided that she was the person who could move it along,” according to a probable cause affidavit released Monday.
A Sedgwick County Comcare worker who took the phone call from 50-year-old Griffin Kyle Cornejo when he made the threats on March 23 contacted 911.
The worker told police she was familiar with Cornejo because he called the community mental health clinic “a lot” to vent when he was angry or troubled. But that day, he was “very agitated” and couldn’t self-regulate like usual after an hourlong call, the affidavit says.
She alleged Cornejo made a number of statements during the call that worried her, the affidavit said, including:
- “Someone better tell the Mayor I’m coming for her”
- That if he “couldn’t take out the Mayor” he would “take out as many cops on the way to her”
- “I may not do it today; I want her to be scared and waiting for me”
- “I might not kill her, but I want to hurt her”
- “I want to beat her to a bloody pulp, you better call someone and tell them I’m coming”
- That he wanted to “beat the (expletive) out of her,” choke her and punch her face
- That he planned to find out where Wu lived, where she plays golf and the tag number on her vehicle
- That he was actively looking for Wu, that “the process had intensified” and that he “would find her”
Cornejo’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Cornejo “had been fixated on” the mayor “for some time now,” the Comcare worker told police, according to the affidavit. Typically when he called, he “would talk for a while, venting” but would be “reasonable at the end of the call,” she told police.
But after an hour on the phone on March 23, “Cornejo was still escalating and hadn’t regulated himself, which made her concerned so 911 was called,” the affidavit says.
When police found and interviewed Cornejo about the Comcare worker’s report, he admitted to making the calls from a bar, the affidavit says.
“He said he was mad about the system and Ms. Wu was the person he could vent on because he wanted someone to hold accountable,” the affidavit says. “... He said it got out of hand this time because of him being angry” and that his intent was “to put the fear of God into her.:
“He said (he) understood how the statements he made could be alarming to someone,” the affidavit says. But, he told police, “he didn’t seek her (Wu) out or say he would kill her, just that he would ‘Terrance (sic) Crawford up the side of her head,’” meaning he would punch her. Terence Crawford is a professional boxer.
Cornejo also told police if he had seen the mayor “at the height of his anger ... he might have done something” like confront and yell at her and said that “he knew this was his fault and wanted to take accountability for his actions,” according to the affidavit.
Wu told authorities who alerted her about the comments that the threats were concerning and “placed her in fear for her safety to the point” that city security and officers had escorted her throughout her day, the affidavit says.
Neither the mayor nor the city is responsible for processing applications for food assistance. That is handled by the Kansas Department for Children and Families, a state agency. The federal goverment, through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service, administers the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP.
Cornejo was arrested on March 23. He is charged with two counts of criminal threat, both felonies.
His next court date is May 18.
