BOTETOURT COUNTY, Va. – Threats demeaning America, and Botetourt County.
“How unusual is this in Botetourt County,” Board of Supervisors Chair Steve Clinton said.
Clinton tells us there have been several cases of vandalism across the county.
“We’re not a community or neighborhood or county that sees this kind of thing,” Clinton said.
The first incident happened back in April, at the entrance of Greenfield Elementary School and the Botetourt County Sports Complex.
Sheriff’s deputies responded to a call about vandalism and found multiple crude words spray painted on the roadway against America, and Botetourt.
“This has to be an isolated incident, and maybe just some prankster. So personally, I took it seriously, but I didn’t see it as the beginning of a trend,” Clinton said.
But a few months later on June 14, it happened again — in the exact same location.
“My personal thought was that since that was in the same general area as the April incident, that there may be a connection,” Clinton said.
But these threats were different than the first time.
This time, the sheriff’s office said they found threatening statements towards the Board of Supervisors, and other statements expressing displeasure with the government.
“I’m not going to speculate, I really don’t know,” Clinton said in response to a question about what the threats could mean.
But, this could be the end of these messages, as the sheriff’s office arrested a suspect on Tuesday.
They say preliminary investigation suggests they had been increasingly vocal, and more and more set on carrying out acts of violence.
“The way they handled the situation avoided any further escalation. The first one may have escalated on it’s own, but the sheriff’s action in the second one I think absolutely diminished the likelihood of any further escalation,” Clinton said.
One thing is clear to Clinton: Botetourt doesn’t tolerate this behavior.
“What this incident did was instill confidence, first of all knowing that such things are almost unheard of in Botetourt, and secondly being able to observe the splendid reaction of our law enforcement personnel,” he said.