WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The reported threats come at the South Carolina House of Representatives continue a debate on a bill that calls for the removal of the controversial Confederate flag from the state’s Capitol.
“[It is] illegal and inexcusable to threaten the life of a public official or their family,” Charleston’s WCBD reported the state’s Law Enforcement Division as saying.
The latest controversy surrounding the Confederate flag erupted following a June 17, 2015 racially-charged massacre in Charleston, when a young white man, Dylann Storm Roof, shot dead nine African-Americans in a historic black church.
Meanwhile on Monday, South Carolina state senators voted 37-3, to remove the Confederate flag from a memorial in front of the State House.
The flag, also known as Stars and Bars, represented the Confederate States of America, an unrecognized confederation of slave-owning states in the south of the United States. The confederation was formed in 1861 in opposition to Abraham Lincoln’s presidential platform that stood against slavery in the United States.
