The shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has kicked off a wave of threats against public officials.
Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist and State Senator Jeremy Moss, both Democrats, say they received bomb threats Thursday to their homes.
Another Democrat, State Representative Emily Dievendorf, who represents parts of Mid-Michigan, says a photo of them taken on the House floor shortly after lawmakers learned of the shooting Wednesday was spread online out of context.
In the image, Dievendorf and another colleague are sitting while others stand. Online posts accused them of refusing to recognize a moment of prayer.
"What was actually happening is in that moment we were bowing our heads. Anybody who sees the photo can see that we are solemn," they said. "My colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican, remained seated to a great extent on both sides of the aisle as we took that quiet moment, and yet this photo was shared with the suggestion that we were laughing, that we were refusing to participate."
The flood of messages they received including explicit and derogatory language and threats to their staff and family. Dievendorf got emotional as they talked about how the threats had impacted them.
"I will not be intimidated out of doing my job, but it is scary, and I have avoided being at home since I started getting those messages and have had to question whether I should be out and about in the community," Dievendorf said.
"Safety is the expectation and bare minimum standard that we have for our elected officials being able to serve in office, because nobody should fear for their safety in representing their community and serving their community."
Dievendorf says the threats against them and their colleagues need to be taken seriously and need to be investigated.
"I believe strongly in the First Amendment, but hate speech is not free speech."
They say they do not know who took and shared the photo but have had conversations with House leadership about clarifying rules around taking photos on the House floor.
Interview Highlights
On what was happening as the photo was taken
What was actually happening is in that moment we were bowing our heads. Anybody who sees the photo can see that we are solemn. We're serious. Our heads are facing our desks, and we're we're having a quiet moment. And that was because we had just responded to a very confusing moment on the House floor where everything stopped. All business stopped. And then a select group of lawmakers stood at a microphone and started to announce Charlie Kirk's death and that they were going to pray, and they asked that folks bow their heads. My colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican, remained seated to a great extent on both sides of the aisle as we took that quiet moment, and yet this photo was shared with the suggestion that we were laughing, that we were refusing to participate.
On how the threats have impacted them
I don't want to say that I was afraid or that I am afraid right now because I will not be intimidated out of doing my job, but it is scary, and I have avoided being at home since I started getting those messages and have had to question whether I should be out and about in the community. And I have the same concern for my staff, and I have the same concern for all of my colleagues because this threat may have been directed at a handful of us in Michigan in an explicit way, but they certainly suggest that Democrats in general should be afraid for their physical safety.
On being a public servant at this time
We need to acknowledge that allusions to violence should be investigated for potential for actual physical violence and people following through on their threats and their harassment. But we need to be ensuring, first and foremost, that just we have the safety and safety is the expectation and bare minimum standard that we have for our elected officials being able to serve in office, because nobody should fear for their safety in representing their community and serving their community. So, we do need to make sure that we're safe wherever we are, and that our our staff is safe, but we also need to acknowledge in a public way that we do not accept that this job should threaten your life, and right now, I'm accepting that it is a real danger.
Interview Transcript
Sophia Saliby: The shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week has kicked off a wave of threats against public officials.
Lieutenant Governor Garlin Gilchrist and State Senator Jeremy Moss say they received bomb threats to their homes.
State Representative Emily Dievendorf, who represents parts of Mid-Michigan, says a photo of them taken on the House floor shortly after lawmakers learned of the shooting Wednesday was spread online out of context and led to them receiving numerous derogatory and violent threats.
Dievendorf joins me now. Thank you for being here.
Emily Dievendorf: Yes, thank you for having me.
Saliby: In this photo, that's gone viral in a lot of ways, you and another Democratic state lawmaker are sitting while others are standing. Posts online said you were refusing to recognize a moment of prayer. Can you explain what was happening for you in that moment on the floor?
Dievendorf: Sure. What was actually happening is in that moment we were bowing our heads. Anybody who sees the photo can see that we are solemn. We're serious. Our heads are facing our desks, and we're we're having a quiet moment. And that was because we had just responded to a very confusing moment on the House floor where everything stopped. All business stopped. And then a select group of lawmakers stood at a microphone and started to announce Charlie Kirk's death and that they were going to pray, and they asked that folks bow their heads.
My colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican, remained seated to a great extent on both sides of the aisle as we took that quiet moment, and yet this photo was shared with the suggestion that we were laughing, that we were refusing to participate. There was no request for anybody to stand. And this all happened very quickly, and my position reflected what most of my colleagues were doing in that moment.
Saliby: When did you realize this image had made its way online?
Dievendorf: I didn't know anything about the image until I heard that my colleague, another state representative, was fielding threats, and I asked what the threats were, and that's when I was told that they involved me as well. And that was the first I had heard of this. I hadn't seen the photo, and I was already home by that point.
Saliby: Do you know who took this photo?
Dievendorf: It is still a mystery, who took the photo. It did come from the Republican side of the House floor, and we're not quite sure who and who took that photo. They did take it ironically at the time that everybody else was praying. So, whoever took that photo was not praying, I will point that out.
Saliby: The House rules only allow people with permission to take photos on the floor. You said whoever took it went against those rules. Do you plan to take this issue to House leadership?
Dievendorf: I have spoken with House leadership about this, and I've spoken to some of my Republican colleagues about this. I do believe that we are working on clarification around what we can and cannot do on the House floor, but the way that this photo was cropped and then a narrative was created around it, out of context and with misinformation, is a perfect example of why we can't politicize in a negative and false way any image from our day-to-day work activity,
Saliby: You detailed the kinds of threats you received, and many of them we can't say on the radio because of their explicit language. Can you talk about what went through your mind as you received these very, very dark and violent messages?
Dievendorf: I don't want to say that I was afraid or that I am afraid right now because I will not be intimidated out of doing my job, but it is scary, and I have avoided being at home since I started getting those messages and have had to question whether I should be out and about in the community.
And I have the same concern for my staff, and I have the same concern for all of my colleagues because this threat may have been directed at a handful of us in Michigan in an explicit way, but they certainly suggest that Democrats in general should be afraid for their physical safety.
Saliby: Have you had conversations, I know this has been just days, with you know your Democratic colleagues, your Republican colleagues, about what security needs to be in place? Because, like you said, there might not be safety in many places with these types of threats.
Dievendorf: The [conversations] that we're having right now all center the fact that we need to take this type of violence and these threats seriously. We need to acknowledge that allusions to violence should be investigated for potential for actual physical violence and people following through on their threats and their harassment.
But we need to be ensuring, first and foremost, that just we have the safety and safety is the expectation and bare minimum standard that we have for our elected officials being able to serve in office, because nobody should fear for their safety in representing their community and serving their community.
So, we do need to make sure that we're safe wherever we are, and that our our staff is safe, but we also need to acknowledge in a public way that we do not accept that this job should threaten your life, and right now, I'm accepting that it is a real danger.
Saliby: This is a big question to end on, but is there a way to quell this kind of violent rhetoric that we're seeing in our politics in these days?
Dievendorf: I think the only way to quell this rhetoric is to require truth, integrity, compassion and, yes, empathy, without making excuses for taking all these things too far. My background is in civil rights, and I thought that I was used to the kind of threats that exist in civil rights and that has never been acceptable, but I've never encountered anything like this.
And I believe strongly in the First Amendment, but hate speech is not free speech, and we need to take seriously when anything we're saying and doing and the way that we are responding to tragedy and conflict might be instigating violence against our neighbors.
Saliby: I've been speaking with State Representative Emily Dievendorf. Thank you for joining us.
Dievendorf: Thank you so much.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
