Commissioner George Lucier cries "wolf" about alleged threats

By Howard Clarke
Posted Wednesday, February 25, 2009

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Pittsboro, NC - A story appeared on WRAL TV. The original headline was "Chatham officials threatened over immigration stance". It was changed the day after it initially appeared to "Possible threats against Chatham officials investigated"

Below is an email from the WRAL News Director to a concerned law-abiding Chatham County citizen.

Thank you for contacting WRAL and sharing your concerns. While some Chatham County commissioners consider the language in several emails and calls to be threatening, the sheriff's department does not believe that language constitutes a threat, as defined in the state's criminal statutes. We should have been more clear about that distinction. Please know that our intent is always to inform ... never to inflame.

Rick Gall
News Director
WRAL News

View the WRAL TV video at http://www.wral.com/news/local/politics/video/4565526/

George Lucier and the rest of the Chatham County Commissioners continue to lose credibility when they make up stuff like this.

Here is a comment from a poster on the Chatham Online Bulletin Board.

In the report Maj. Blankenship states there have been no actual threats made.

"We are monitoring some incidents with the commissioners," said Maj. Gary Blankenship of the Chatham County Sheriff's Office. "So far, none that we have seen constitutes a threat, so we are just staying apprised of the situation."

You also sensationalize an email to Commissioner Lucier: After the decision in Chatham County, commissioners Chairman George Lucier started getting e-mails with messages like "Sleep soundly while you can!"

I stopped the video so I could read that email and although I can't read the entire message, from what I can read the message seems more likely to be suggesting that the commissioners are in danger from illegal criminals that will be coming to the county in response to this resolution than that the message writer is threatening the commissioner.

See a screen capture of the email from the video at
http://i617.photobucket.com/albums/tt256/genefoto/letterofconcern.jpg?t=1235439089