Missouri state rep: Person who vandalized Confederate statue should be ‘hung from a tall tree’

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share via Email
• Copy Link

  Link Copied

A Missouri state representative is in hot water after saying that he hoped whoever was responsible for vandalizing a Confederate statue was caught and hanged.

State Rep. Warren Love made the comment on a link to an article called “Vandal throws paint on Confederate statue,” according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

“This is totally against the law,” Love wrote. “I hope they are found & hung from a tall tree with a long rope.”

Now, people are pushing back against Love, including the chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party, who has called for Love’s resignation.

“This is a call for lynching by a sitting State Representative,” Stephen Webber tweeted. “Calls for politcal violence are unacceptable. He needs to resign.”

However, Love said that he wasn’t calling for a lynching but just using a “Western” and “cowboy” phrase.

“That was an exaggerated statement that, you know, a lot of times is used in the western world when somebody does a crime or commits theft,” he said. “That’s just a western term and I’m very much a western man. … You know, I wear a coat. You know, I dress western. And, you know, I’m the cowboy of the Capitol.”

He said that he made the comments because he felt it was “disturbing” to see “that somebody would be a low-life enough to” commit that act of vandalism.