Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Man sends emails containing racial slurs and threatening violence to African American legislator as well as President Obama. Man is arrested. Man claims that despite said emails, he is not a racist.
Franklin Glenn Sain was arrested on Feb. 22 on suspicion of harassing state Rep. Rhonda Fields (D) and unlawfully attempting to influence a public official.
Sain admitted to using racial and sexual slurs against Fields in a series of emails dated between Feb. 13 and Feb. 15. is also believed to have sent an unsigned letter to her office threatening “Death to both” her and her daughter, as well as the message, “I keep my 30 Round Magazines There Will Be Blood! I’m Coming For You!”
One of Sain’s emails, sent on Feb. 15, said of Fields and fellow state Rep. Beth McCann (D), “Hopefully somebody Gifords [sic] both of your asses with a gun,” an apparent reference to former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), who was shot in the head in a public attack. Giffords survived, but the mass shooting resulted in the deaths of six people.
Rep. Fields canceled a Town Hall Meeting over concerns about her safety and the safety of her constituents prior to Mr. Sain’s arrest. And though Sain admitted using racial slurs against both Fields and the President, he was adamant that he was not a racist. He was only expressing his opinion regarding her support for new gun control legislation, that’s all.
Sain is chief operating officer of Englewood-based SofTec Solutions, a technology services consulting firm. He says he is not a racist and was “just voicing his frustration about a sacred topic.”
A “sacred topic” which apparently gave him license to use racially offensive language and threaten the life of Ms. Shields and her daughter. Because, hey, First and Second Amendment, er … Freedums!
“It’s OK to disagree with legislators. It’s OK to express your opinion,” said Senate President John Morse. “But we’re protected by the same public safety measures as everybody else. It’s not ever OK to threaten someone.”
Morse said other Democrats in his chamber have also received threats, but none rose to the level of what Fields received.
“It is fascinating that Rep. Fields is just trying to do the best she can for the people of Colorado, and to keep Colorado children safe by limiting gun violence; and it’s met with more violence,” Morse told CBS4. “It is just appalling.”
I think in this case, “appalling” is an understatement. May I respectfully recommend that SofTec Solutions please fire this man as soon as possible. And maybe someone should take away his guns, too. Like forever.
By the way, the legislation that was passed by the Colorado House, and which Rep. Shields sponsored, called for background checks on all gun purchases, including those conducted online, and would limit magazine sizes to 15 for rifles and handguns, and 8 for shotguns. Really radical stuff. By the way, Shields represents the district where the Aurora movie theater shooting occurred last summer. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that she was likely doing the job her constituents want her to do.
Too bad, Mr. Franklin “Sacred Topic” Sain felt he had a right to threaten to murder her and her child for it.
