Daniel Mehler knew that he would lose, but the self-proclaimed “stoner lawyer from Colorado” challenged Bexar County District Attorney Nico LaHood to a mixed martial arts fight last week on Facebook anyway.

“I think Nico is a bully,” Mehler later told me. “Everybody talks about, ‘Oh, he’s a black belt.’ And it’s like, ‘OK, he’s a bully.’ I’ve had my ass kicked in life before. It wouldn’t be the first time. … Hell, if he wants to run around like a bully, someone has to tell him where to stick it.”

That might sound imprudent.

But Mehler, who paid for law school by farming marijuana in Denver and now brands himself “the Dopest Lawyer in Town,” is fed up with what he considers an unseemly habit of the district attorney: using social media to humiliate and intimidate perceived enemies, a behavior otherwise known as cyberbullying.

Ironically, LaHood has publicly campaigned against this online scourge.

In a statement on Wednesday, LaHood texted, “I do not engage in Cyber Bullying. … All my comments are in response to other people’s posts.”

Unfortunately, I’m also part of this story. LaHood has attacked me online in reaction to columns I’ve written about his stances on public policy. An example is a recent column that questioned his plan to arm his criminal investigators with assault rifles.

“Chasnoff has a reputation for ‘agenda’ writing and the community knows it,” LaHood commented on the column itself. “He has a Facebook account that does not allow anyone to chime in or comment unless he gives them permission. Now how is that transparent journalism? … he is the ‘journalistic bully’ and I will not put up with his antics.”

This comment echoed texts that LaHood sent to me personally, messages in which he called me “dishonest” and challenged me to a “town hall” debate about assault rifles.

“Also, accept me as a friend on your Facebook so we can dialogue in open for everyone to see,” he texted. “It’s not honorable to have a page that no one can comment on unless you have accepted them as your friend. You signed up for your ‘job’ so you should be a man and stand behind and answer for what you write.”

This odd request is something I’ve not experienced in more than a decade of covering elected officials: a goading to argue online by someone in high office who recently acknowledged that he takes to Facebook in “fight mode.”

On Monday, a day after the massacre of 49 people at a gay night club in Orlando, Florida, by a man wielding an assault rifle, LaHood again was in fight mode, posting on Facebook a bitter defense of Christianity.

LaHood’s message inspired thousands of “likes” and a flood of praise. The district attorney soaked up the love but reacted harshly to any dissent.

One commenter rudely recalled LaHood’s arrest about two decades ago for trying to sell Ecstasy pills to an undercover agent at a strip club while in possession of a firearm.

“I’m not sure how to call you an idiot and hypocrite and be politically correct,” the district attorney responded.

Another gadfly in the religious soup was John Foddrill, a local conspiracy theorist ignored by most public officials.

LaHood, however, lashed out.

“John Foddrill Sr you are a fool and a coward,” LaHood wrote. “You have no honor and dignity. … I dare you to meet with me and the Feds!!! You won’t so go back to watching tv in your underwear.”

Another commenter called Foddrill a “backward ass redneck.” LaHood responded with “hahaha … Thank you so much and I needed that laugh.”

Foddrill then accused LaHood of “cyberbullying.”

“hahaha!” LaHood responded. “Cyber bullying? Are you that deranged … I think it’s hilarious when ‘bullies’ like you fold, like a cheap suit, when people stand up to you.”

This exchange stands, however, as a rare instance in which Foddrill is correct. LaHood’s behavior is bullying, the sort that moved Mehler to invite a whupping just to make a point. (LaHood did not respond to Mehler’s challenge to “fight to raise money for the charity of your choice.”)

“He ought to be above engaging online commenters in ways that are woefully beneath the position he’s holding,” Mehler said. “We have rapists and murderers running around this city, and our district attorney is sitting up in his ivory tower requesting guns to protect himself while he engages in Internet commentary wars. … He absolutely has better things to do.

“Have some dignity, man,” the stoner lawyer added. “You don’t have to engage everyone who disagrees with you, and especially in such a virulent way.”

bchasnoff@express-news.net