Bomb Threat Issued in Birmingham as Neo-Confederates React to Monument Removal
Amid ongoing protests against police brutality spurred by the recent in Minneapolis, cities from Richmond to Tampa are removing divisive symbols of the Confederacy.聽On Monday,聽one angry caller told police in Birmingham, Alabama, he planned to kill police, protestors and the city mayor if they proceeded with plans to remove a monument in the city.
The incident demonstrates how far some proponents of the Lost Cause narrative are willing to go to keep symbols of white supremacy in place.
In an expletive- and slur-ridden call to 911, a caller warned a Birmingham police dispatcher, 鈥淚f you take down that statue in Linn Park, Confederate Soldiers and Sailors, I鈥檓 going to come down there with my AK-47 and start blowing the damn pigs away and the protestors, everybody.
鈥淚 am going to assassinate [inaudible] Randall Woodfield [sic] and kill that dead n****r... I鈥檝e got a bomb set right down there that鈥檚 about to go off, you hear me鈥ou better lay off that statue right now, you better back the f--- off you hear me?鈥�
The caller refused to identify himself to police, but a spokesperson for the Birmingham Police Department told Hatewatch they have a suspect in custody. Brian Stephen Vest, 49, was arrested in Warrior, Alabama on Wednesday, June 3 in connection聽with聽the call. The Jefferson County Sheriff鈥檚 Office and Warrior, Alabama police assisted in executing the felony warrant.
show that Vest is currently being held as a pretrial inmate on a $30,000 bond for making terrorist threats.
Birmingham鈥檚 Linn Park was the site of聽聽as rage over a nationwide spate of deaths of unarmed Black Americans at the hands of law enforcement sparked a protest, then a riot. The 鈥淪oldiers and Sailors鈥� monument has been a source of ire and pain for many residents of a city that is steeped in the history of segregation and Black Americans鈥� fight for civil rights, often in the face of shocking police brutality. On Monday, Birmingham鈥檚 Mayor Randall Woodfin聽聽at the urging of protestors.
In spite of聽, Woodfin kept his word, defying state laws intended to keep the monument up in the process. On Monday night, work crews took down the giant stone obelisk, leaving an empty, graffiti scrawled pedestal behind.
The next day, Alabama鈥檚 attorney general聽聽against Woodfin for violating the state鈥檚 monument preservation law.
, Woodfin said, "It's probably better for this city to pay this civil fine than to have more civil unrest."
Though some聽聽now is the time to remove painful public tributes to America鈥檚 slaveholding past, the handful of monuments taken down by cities represent a small portion of the 1,747 statues identified聽in an updated version of the 澳彩开奖鈥檚 report on Confederate memory in the United States, Whose Heritage.
As decisions regarding the future of memorials to the Confederacy are made, white nationalist and neo-Confederate hate groups and members are likely to respond. Previous pushes to remove Confederate iconography from the public square resulted in loud and ferocious protest, often accompanied by violence.
In June 2015, then-Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley decided to remove a Confederate flag from the Columbia statehouse grounds following the Charleston Emmanuel AME church massacre. The move sparked an uproar that spawned in 356 pro-Confederate rallies聽before the year ended.
The resulting furor over the removal of the Confederate flag grew alongside a growing white nationalist online subculture now known as the 鈥渁lt-right.鈥� Together, they burst into mainstream consciousness on August 12, 2017. The planned 鈥淯nite the Right鈥� rally 鈥� fomented by opposition to the city of Charlottesville鈥檚 attempts to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a park in the city鈥檚 center 鈥� culminated in the death of Heather Heyer, a counterprotester, at the hands of聽James Alex Fields, a white nationalist rally-goer.
The same day, several rallygoers聽with the neo-Confederate hate group the League of the South were involved in the聽gang-beating聽of a Black man, DeAndre Harris, in a nearby parking garage. League member Tyler Watkins Davis is currently serving a 聽for his role in the attack.
Members of the League of the South have continued to protest at the site of Confederate statues. Jessica Reavis, a League officer from Virginia, was found guilty of聽illegally carrying a firearm聽at an October 2019 protest in Pittsboro, North Carolina.
On Sunday, May 31, Jeffrey Alan Long, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans鈥� Mechanized Cavalry with ties to the League, was arrested for discharging a firearm near a protest at a Salisbury, North Carolina Confederate statue.
This history tells us that the current spate of Confederate monument removals will not go unchallenged by groups devoted to the preservation of symbols of white supremacy.
Hatewatch has not yet determined whether Brian Vest has ties to organized hate groups.
In related news, reports have swirled that a group associated with the Ku Klux Klan plans to march in Birmingham. Hatewatch research analysts track Klan groups and have so far been unable to substantiate rumors of an organized march planned by KKK members in response to the Linn Park statue removal or ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. If new information comes to light, it will be reported on the Hatewatch blog.
