Richmond, Virginia, Mayor Levar Stoney has been assigned a police security detail after receiving several threats in the wake of his removing several Confederate monuments from the city.
Stoney, 39, whose apartment building has also been a target of vandals, has vowed remove statues from the city’s Monument Avenue, despite ongoing protests throughout the city that have also poured across the state.
At the start of July, Stoney issued an emergency order to rid the city of about 11 statues with a lawsuit subsequently filed to block the order. At the time, the mayor cited concerns that protesters may hurt themselves attempting to pull the statues down. Several of the monuments that were taken down have been stored at a wastewater treatment plant.
The Richmond Police Department has since cited “serious, credible and ongoing threats,” prompting a security detail for the mayor.
“[The detail] is now in effect and will remain in place for the time being,” a department spokesperson confirmed. “For security reasons, we will not make public the tactics employed by the detail. The threats are being investigated.”