Death threat sent to Charlotte mayor, City Council members not credible, CMPD says
A Charlotte City Council member on Friday tweeted a photo of an email in which the sender threatened to kill him, Mayor Vi Lyles and two other council members.
The sender, in the email, also claims to have killed their mother. They refer to the city officials as “parasites” who made their life “hell.”
The email also included an image of what the sender claims is an AR-15, a handgun and a plate carrier.
City Council member Larken Egleston posted an image of the email on Twitter around 10:35 a.m. The email included a name and a south Charlotte address.
Egleston later deleted that tweet and posted an edited version less than an hour later after Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police determined the person whose name appeared had nothing to do with the threat, he said.
Mecklenburg County property records also show a different name for the address.
“There are some things about elected office I will definitely not miss,” Egleston said in the original tweet. Egleston, who represents District 1, lost in the Democratic primary for an at-large seat in May.
Police found the email did not pose “a credible threat,” spokesman Lt. Stephen Fischbach said in a statement to The Charlotte Observer.
“The person identified in the email as being the author of the threat was found to not be involved with this incident,” he said.
Using the image search site TinEye, the Observer traced the origin of the weapons image to a 2016 post on a website that appears to be abandoned.
The sender listed the addresses of what they believe to be the homes of Lyles, Egleston, Mayor Pro Tem Julie Eiselt and at-large council member Braxton Winston.
“I’m not F—ing around and I know where every single one of you live and I’m not alone,” the person wrote.
The sender also claimed to have a 93-page manifesto.
The City Council members did not immediately respond to Observer requests for comment.
Egleston told WSOC that police sent a vehicle to his house. CMPD confirmed it provided security for the threatened officials.
Fischbach said this is the only time in the past year that he can recall a death threat being sent to city officials.
This story was originally published August 5, 2022 at 4:22 PM.