A death threat was painted on a building adjacent to Independent candidate for Governor David Hatley’s office in Johnson City overnight. With the one year anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s assassination having just passed, authorities are taking the threat very seriously, particularly in view of the aggressive rhetoric and attack ads in the campaign directed at Hatley that could inspire such threats or even violent actions.
The location was a warehouse for Whisper USA, which is right across the street from the company’s main office in Johnson City.
The police have been on location all morning and the Hatley campaign is referring any and all questions about this active investigation to local authorities and as the campaign cooperates in every way. Until there are more facts, the Hatley campaign is not engaging in any speculation about how or why this happened.
Hatley did issue a brief statement in response to the death threat spray-painted on the exterior of one of his businesses in Johnson City that read: “Drop Out or Die” with the symbol for anarchy:
“First and foremost, I want to thank local law enforcement for all the work they are doing to find the coward who did this and bring that person to justice. I think we can all agree that rhetoric calling for political assassination has no place in Tennessee or anywhere in the United States of America. We must never lose sight of the fact that more unites us than divides us and whatever differences we have, we work through them via the democratic process and civil debate, not through violence and terror. I have no doubt that all of Tennessee’s leaders will condemn this threat and make no mistake about it, I will not be intimidated into dropping out of this race,” Hatley said.
Hatley’s employees have already cleaned up the vandalism and removed the red-painted threat.
Steve Gill is Editor and Publisher of TriStar Daily.
