Maxine Waters Cancels Events After ‘Very Serious Death Threat’

Rep. Maxine Waters (D‑Calif.) has can­celed week­end events in Alabama and Texas due to a “very seri­ous death threat,” accord­ing to a state­ment report­ed by CNN Thursday.

The threat fol­lows Waters’  call to pro­test­ers to con­front mem­bers of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion in pub­lic over their sup­port for the president’s zero tol­er­ance pol­i­cy against immigrants.

Waters’ state­ment says she received an increased num­ber of hate calls and death threats after President Donald Trump attacked her on Twitter Monday and in a series of oth­er comments.

“As the pres­i­dent has con­tin­ued to lie and false­ly claim that I encour­aged peo­ple to assault his sup­port­ers, while also offer­ing a veiled threat that I should ‘be care­ful,’ even more indi­vid­u­als are leav­ing [threat­en­ing] mes­sages and send­ing hos­tile mail to my office,” Waters said.

“There was one very seri­ous death threat made against me on Monday from an indi­vid­ual in Texas which is why my planned speak­ing engage­ments in Texas and Alabama were can­celed this week­end … indi­vid­u­als threat­ened to shoot, lynch, or cause me seri­ous bod­i­ly harm,” she added.

Waters’ speech at a ral­ly last Saturday in Los Angeles and lat­er on MSNBC set off a furi­ous debate about civil­i­ty in pol­i­tics, with some of Waters’ col­leagues in the Democratic Party crit­i­ciz­ing her too. Her sup­port­ers say that Trump him­self has set a base­ment stan­dard for civil­i­ty and that poli­cies such as sep­a­rat­ing immi­grant chil­dren from their par­ents are mon­strous and should be denounced.

Waters issued her call for pro­test­ers to con­front mem­bers of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion on the street and at busi­ness­es, after White House press sec­re­tary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to leave a Virginia restau­rant last Friday.

Restaurant own­er Stephanie Wilkinson told The Washington Post that she’d explained to Sanders that her busi­ness has “cer­tain stan­dards” to uphold, “such as hon­esty and com­pas­sion.” Last Tuesday, pro­test­ers hound­ed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen out of a Mexican restau­rant in Washington.

Trump accused Waters of threat­en­ing harm to peo­ple. The con­gress­woman said Monday that she believes in “very peace­ful” protests and nev­er called for vio­lence or harm against any­one. Story orig­i­nat­ed here()