Antonio “Savage” Jenkins Jr. was proud enough of the new tattoo on his left bicep to stick a photo of it on Facebook.

“My tattoo iz a pig get’n his brains blew out,” read the caption.

The tattoo depicts a person holding a pistol to the mouth of a pig dressed in a Minneapolis police uniform with the badge of officer Jeffrey Seidel.

Hennepin County prosecutors say Jenkins’ tattoo crossed the line from body art to crime. On Thursday, Nov. 8, the reputed member of the Bloods street gang — currently on probation for armed robbery — was charged with making a terroristic threat for the benefit of a gang.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said the threat was specific and that Jenkins had the capacity to act on it.

“The whole series of things made it enough to press the charge,” Freeman said. “It’s pretty crude and pretty direct. The officer works in the area. (Jenkins) sent it out on Facebook. That’s a lot.”

The arrest comes less than a week after Minneapolis and St. Paul police were reported as being on heightened alert after learning that Gangster Disciples street gang members were threatening to kill an officer.

The threats are allegedly in retaliation for the Oct. 23 death of a reputed gang member who was shot by St. Paul police during a drug investigation.

Jenkins, 20, was in the Hennepin County jail with bail set at $60,000. His first appearance before a judge was expected Friday afternoon.

The man allegedly had a friend give him the tattoo Oct. 30 in his St. Louis Park home. The charge alleges Jenkins “did threaten to commit a crime of violence with the purpose of terrorizing another, and/or in reckless disregard of the risk of causing terror in another.”

But when does body art become an illegal act?

Dale Carpenter, who teaches constitutional law and the First Amendment at the University of Minnesota Law School, said that if the police version of events is correct, “then this is not protected speech.”

“It would constitute, in my view, what’s called a ‘true threat’ under the Supreme Court’s First Amendment decisions,” he said.

“It’s a serious threat to the health or life of another person and such statements, no matter what form they’re made in — written, verbal, put on Facebook or put on your body — it is unprotected.”

The criminal complaint says a Hennepin County sheriff’s deputy spotted the photo online and notified Minneapolis police.

“The tattoo depicts a person holding a semiautomatic handgun with the barrel of the gun partially in the mouth of a pig,” said the criminal complaint. “The pig is wearing a police hat and uniform with a patch on the right shoulder with ‘Mpls. 8230’ and a nameplate with the name ‘J. Seidel’ under the patch. Below the ‘J. Seidel’ were the words ‘F— the police.'”

Investigators “noted a total of eighteen (18) people had given the posting a ‘thumbs-up’ response,” the complaint said.

Seidel is an officer assigned “in a territory traditionally claimed by the Bloods” and was a member of a gang-investigation team, according to the complaint.

“Officer Seidel interpreted the posting to be a direct threat against his life,” the complaint said. “Additionally, Officer Seidel’s family is in fear as a result of the posting.”

Police stopped Jenkins on Monday and saw the tattoo. He reportedly told them he got it because he was angry at Seidel for something that occurred in August 2011.

The complaint doesn’t describe the incident but says none of the reports from the occurrence was issued by Seidel.

The complaint said “the Bloods street gang has an extensive network of members … who are known to employ violence on behalf of their fellow members.”

As a result of Monday’s stop, Jenkins was charged with driving after his licensed had been suspended and driving without a rental agreement, both misdemeanors.

On Wednesday, he pleaded guilty to the driving-after-suspension count. The other charge was dropped.

Hennepin County District Judge Daniel Mabley sentenced him to 30 days in the Hennepin County Workhouse, but stayed 28 of those days for a year.

In the matter of the tattoo, Freeman said his office weighed several factors before deciding it constituted a threat.

“Number one, it is pretty specific. It identifies a specific police officer by name and badge number, and expresses a clear threat to him — ‘I’m going to kill you’ — and then he publicizes it,” Freeman said. “He’s a known Blood, and the officer works in the area. The whole series of things made it enough to press the charge.”

He said another consideration was that Jenkins had the ability to carry out the threat.

Carpenter said that once the alleged threat became specific and public, it became hard to defend from a First Amendment standpoint.

“When you go to threaten a specific person, then you can be punished. This would have to be interpreted in that fashion, and I think it reasonably could be,” he said.

“If he’d had it on a hidden part of his body and never showed it to anybody, that would be an interesting case. But if he posted it on Facebook, and a lot of people saw it, and it was visible, I think he communicated a threat.

“He can say, ‘I hate the police’ or he can say, ‘that police officer is corrupt’ or he can criticize him,” Carpenter said, “but he does cross the line when he makes a threat.”

At the time of his arrest, Jenkins was on supervised release from prison, where he’d been serving a sentence for a November 2009 conviction for first-degree aggravated robbery in Anoka County.

The robbery occurred in February 2008, when Jenkins was 17. He was charged with two counts of aggravated robbery; he pleaded guilty to one, and the other was dismissed. He was sentenced under the state’s Extended Juvenile Jurisdiction statute.

An EJJ defendant is given punishments both in the state district court and the juvenile system. They serve the juvenile sanction until they are 21, but if they violate the conditions, the case can be turned over to the adult court system and they can be sent to prison to serve the adult sentence.

Jenkins was given a four-year sentence in the adult system, but it was stayed for 20 years. He was sent to the Anoka County jail for 30 days and then released. He was ordered to not have any contact with gang members, accomplices or victims of his crime; he also had to obey instructions of his probation officer.

On April 8, 2010, an Anoka County district judge issued a warrant for Jenkins’ arrest because he’d been in contact with gang members and had failed to notify his probation officer of changes of residence or place of work.

The judge determined Jenkins had violated his probation, and he was sent to the state prison in St. Cloud on April 29, 2010.

He was released under supervision on Sept. 26, 2011.

David Hanners can be reached at 612-338-6516.