‘Pig supporters not welcome’: Pro-police stores threatened, vandalized, harassed
Feb 19, 2018 12:37 pm
St. Louis antique store owner Cherri Elder formed positive relationships with police patrolling in the area, so she decided to display an American flag containing a thin blue line — a symbol for police sacrifice — in front of Elder’s Antiques.
But the gesture didn’t go over well with everybody.
“People came by, they would cuss at you, they would harass you,” Elder told KMOV-TV, “they would harass the customers.”
Elder told the station she took down the thin blue line flag to avoid continued trouble.
“I thought things were getting better,” she told KMOV. “But apparently it’s not.”
What happened?
A month after taking down the thin blue line flag — which is now displayed inside her 32-year-old store — Elder told the station she found a large handwritten sign on the front window of Elder’s Antiques that read: “Pig supporters not welcome. Flag goes down or you go down.”
On the right bottom corner of the sign was a hammer and sickle — presumably standing for communism and the former Soviet Union — along with the letters “MLM,” which KMOV said often stands for Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
“Oh, it’s most definitely a threat,” Elder told the station, adding that the sign was “big” and “for everybody to see.”
What happened at a nearby store?
A window at Delmay Ltd. Antiques — one of Elder’s neighbors a few doors down — is now boarded up.
Why?
Three individuals were seen on surveillance video kicking in the window and running off, KMOV reported.
Delmay also had a thin blue line flag hanging on her storefront, the station added, but it was stolen.
How is Elder reacting?
“My business, my friends are being targeted,” Elder told KMOV.
While Elder added to the station that she has “every right to fly a flag,” she said she doesn’t think she’ll be putting it back on display.
But whatever Elder decides, she told KMOV that these actions must “stop before somebody gets hurt” and that she desires a return “to some kind of normalcy where people have respect for one another.”
(H/T: Blue Lives Matter)
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