Writing in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch this Monday, columnist Tony Messenger mentioned the "ominous" new post on the website for the Rockwood School District in Missouri.
"Threats of violence against school board members, officials and workers in our nation's public schools can be reported by the public to the FBI's National Threat Operations Center (NTOC) via its national tip line (1-800-CALL-FBI) and online through the FBI website," the post reads.
The post came after an advisory was sent to school boards and law enforcement from U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, who said school districts should report threats from parents to the Justice Department.
According to Messenger, the fact that such a notice even needed to be posted is a sad commentary "on the political division of our times," adding that the school district has seen multiple resignations of school officials due to threats from angry parents -- angry parents who are "fed misinformation on Facebook and other platforms about masks, vaccines, critical race theory and other topics."
Messenger reviewed a YouTube video showing parents at a school board meeting who were outraged over Critical Race Theory, which isn't taught in Rockwood schools.
"There were comments seeking some books to be banned from the library and, of course, breathless criticism of the mask mandate that was in place at the board meeting and continues in all the public schools," Messenger writes, adding that the school board members "showed tremendous patience sitting there listening to criticisms, most of which were based on falsehoods" that were "fed to them by the Republican propaganda machine, which is pushing the straw-man argument that Garland is trying to tamp down dissent."
Read the full article over at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.