Threatening Feedback To City Councilwoman Sparks Concern
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Philadelphia police say they're looking into social media threats made against councilwoman Helen Gym after her twitter proposal to remove a statue of former Mayor Frank Rizzo from a city office building.
Police got involved at the request of the Council President.
Council President Darrell Clarke also used Twitter to express his concern about threats made to Gym on social media.
He wrote that they went beyond the racial slurs that elected officials of color receive every day, and he seemed particularly outraged that men were threatening her: "A threat of violence against women on Facebook or Twitter is especially cowardly," he tweeted.
Gym says she has also received a lot of supportive feedback, and it's not the first time she's gotten a hostile response.
"That's not the thing that is going to stop this conversation," said Gym. "There's nothing worse than responding to hate and racism with silence and fear, and part of being an elected official is being able to use the platform that we have to put forward some of the tough conversations that we, as a city, have to be brave enough to have."
Police are also protecting the Rizzo statue, now surrounded by fencing, after a man threw an egg at it Wednesday.
