COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho (AP) - At least three residents in Coeur d’Alene reported that their signs supporting presidential candidate Joe Biden were stolen and someone placed Confederate flags and conservative manifestos in their yards, the Coeur d’Alene Press reported.
Security footage cameras at one residence caught a person in a hooded coat walk onto a porch, tear down the Biden sign and leave with it. Another security camera in the neighborhood caught a person placing a Confederate flag and letter in front of a house. Both cameras recorded the footage around 3:45 a.m. on Thursday.
The two-page manifestos that accompanied the Confederate flags referred to Democrats as hypocrites for their stances on systemic racism. The letter writer cites, for example, that Biden had eulogized Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd from West Virginia, who was a member and organizer for the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940s and ’50s.
Byrd later renounced his membership to the organization and apologized throughout his career for his affiliation. The NAACP released a statement upon Byrd’s death saying he “became a champion for civil rights and liberties” and “came to consistently support the NAACP civil rights agenda.” Biden delivered a eulogy for Byrd in 2010 after the longtime senator died at the age of 92.
Coeur d’Alene Police Detective Mario Rio said the department initially investigated the incidents as potential malicious harassment, but that the standards of the law did not apply because the Confederate flags and letters were politically motivated as opposed to racially motivated, the incidents do not rise to the level of malicious harassment.
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