After the tragic shootings in Tucson, Arizona, it came came to light, that locally in the San Francisco Bay Area, State Senator Leland Yee had been receiving racist and death threats in his office, and that Pima, AZ law enforcement officials thought these threats might have been tied to the events in Arizona.
It turns out that after the public revelation of these earlier threats, death threats and racist threats against Yee have continued, and have actually increased, including threats after Yee and State Assemblyman Paul Fong demanded an apology from Rush Limbaugh for his mimicking of Chinese President Hu Jintao. It’s gotten so bad that Yee asked publicly today for the threats to stop.
“I thought our country and our community were a lot better than this,” Yee said at an afternoon news conference in the Hiram Johnson building at 455 Golden Gate Ave. It’s sad that it’s gotten to the point that Yee felt it necessary to make this kind of request. If some of the comments to the linked Mercury News article are any indication, I doubt his request for the threats to stop will make any difference, and may only increase the racist comments and threats against Yee.
There’s still no suspects and no one has been arrested for these threats which have been on-going for the last 6 years. Yee said he hasn’t changed his routine because of the threats, but it appears law enforcement is taking the threats more seriously. “I will continue to go out in the community and talk about issues,” he said.
