A local Prince William County blogger is in a bit of hot water after posting what PWC Executive Melissa Peacor termed a threat. Per the good folks at Inside Nova:
Bob Weir, chairman of Haymarket’s Planning Commission, won’t say whether he wrote the post, which appeared on The Derecho website April 15.
But Weir confirmed Tuesday he was questioned by a county police detective May 12 about the post, which Peacor reported to Police Chief Stephan Hudson both because of the picture of the gun and because of two sharply-worded closing lines:
“Thanks Missy for wasting more of our time, but bear in mind Karma is a bitch,” the post reads. “You may not like how this ultimately ends.”
The blog in question is PWC’s “The Derecho” — a favorite among conservatives. Folks will remember PWC’s penchant for anonymous bloggers, notables including the Sheriff of Nottingham and speculation as to its authorship, as well as Black Velvet Bruce Lee — reputed to be a group blog that morphed into today’s Black Velvet Bruce Li (see what they did there).
Here’s the thrust of the complaint:
“In our current society where incidents of violence play out in places including local government and school board chambers, any threat of violence is unacceptable,” Peacor wrote.
“In a society trying to come to grips with violence towards women, choosing to post a picture of a gun in conjunction with these words towards me is chilling,” she added. “The bottom line is this: No public servant should be made to feel fearful for their safety due to their jobs. This is simply not ok.”
So it wasn’t just the threat… or the threat of violence but rather “violence towards women” that is at dispute?
Dialing rhetoric back is fine, and I don’t have much of a taste for violence at all. But something really doesn’t add up here… if that makes sense. I mean, violence against women?
Whether this is hyperbole or fact remains to be seen, though the pseudonymous author of The Derecho doesn’t seem terribly impressed:
In her e-mail, the CXO laments “…what has happened here in Prince William that has created an atmosphere where this behavior occurs”. I would suggest that Mrs. Peacor look both in the mirror and to that “citizen” concerned for her safety if she truly seeks the answer. Much of what has occurred over the past several years can be directly attributed to the actions of the current and immediately former County CXO. Obfuscation, budget games and retaliatory actions against citizens, usually in the Gainesville District, set the stage for loud, pointed and occasionally obnoxious responses to those actions. Once the stage had been set, none other than the “citizen” I suspect is at the heart of this matter lit the match that resulted in the exploding powder keg of “bad behavior” to which the CXO refers.
…and in about as close to an admission of the facts of the Inside Nova article as one is going to get:
As most are aware, the County Exec. has used her position to send the police in search of yours truly. While I do have an issue with that as I would suggest it is an abuse of her office, what has largely been glossed over is how that circumstance came to pass. In an e-mail to the BOCS dated May , the CXO states quite clearly that the initial complaint to the Police Department was made by a “citizen” concerned for her safety. Curiously, in the article detailing the incident the press notes that both the Police Department and Jason Grant have confirmed that the complaint was actually initiated by a phone call from the CXO, and that is where the story really begins to spin down the rabbit hole for me and appears to have initiated a strange series of events that call into question the integrity of some of our elected and appointed officials and what could be considered the abrogation of basic Constitutional Rights.
So either we have an instance where a county executive truly was in fear of her life (or thought the rhetoric was getting too hot), or we have an instance where the poison pen of a someone deeply embedded in PWC government was a tad too sharp… and someone sent in the cops to shut that person down.
Not sure how to slice this one folks.
