Threats and harassment: Local politicians talk backlash amid pandemic

“I stepped out of a news conference recently and got a message saying ‘you will be executed for your crimes against humanity Kenney,” he stated in a Facebook Live video.

The second message threatened his 83-year-old mother who lives alone.

Aside from local politicians, police and health inspectors have also become the subject of threats.

In his 17 years as an elected official, Brooks Mayor Barry Morishita said the COVID-19 pandemic has been the most contentious issue he has ever had to deal with. The divisiveness of the issue coupled with rash, misinformed statements is what Morishita believes is contributing to the threats, that in some cases, turn dangerous,

“When you have someone that isn’t quite as rooted in reality or has some other issues, you have no idea how that can trigger that person. The conversation of COVID-19 triggered this person enough to want to come down to the office and arrest me” he said,

“No one knew what his capabilities were. Nobody knew if he was armed, or how serious he was, or if he was going to turn physically violent. We shouldn’t have to deal with that. It is completely unnecessary,” Morishita said.

In Medicine Hat, the city has been dealing with incidents of harassment, according to Mayor Clugston.

” Yes we’ve called the police. We have been forwarding, mostly around here, it is emails or Facebook and we just sort of keep track. We call them the frequent flyers and we just keep a list and if it gets to that harassing level we will just forward those off to police ” Mayor Ted Clugston said, noting he is relatively used to all the public backlash.

In fact, when comparing all his years as an elected official, Clugston said the level of harassment towards him has only slightly increased during COVID-19. But that isn’t to say the pandemic hasn’t changed people’s behavior.

“ What has surprised me is people that I respected in the community, that I know fairly well, and they seemed to be relatively at ease during the last eight years except COVID-19 has caused them to do things that I didn’t expect, and say things that were probably inappropriate,” he said.

Trying to keep the peace, nonetheless is still a challenge, according to Mayor Clugston. Both Mayor Clugston and Mayor Morishita encouraged residents to remain respectful and to think about their actions beforehand.

” If the actions aren’t building a community, they should rethink doing them,” Morishita said.

by Tiffany Goodwein

Threats and harassment: Local politicians talk backlash amid pandemic

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