News-Record.com

Saturday's lead editorial.

There’s more than one way to fight City Hall. But it doesn’t include threatening to shoot City Council members if you disagree with them.

And it’s particularly unnerving when the person making the threat reportedly has a small arsenal to back it up. Greensboro police correctly didn’t write off such abhorrent behavior as simply misdirected anger spurred on by slights, real or imagined.

William Marshburn, 57, of Long Valley Road near Summerfield was arrested Tuesday outside the Melvin Municipal Building while protesting a City Council meeting. He showed up, bullhorn in hand, after allegedly making the same threat to a city staff member Monday.

He apparently is upset at being forced into a city he wants no part of. The bur under his saddle is a city policy that requires him to disconnect from a perfectly good well and septic system and hook onto city lines.

Marshburn isn’t alone in viewing that requirement as costly, unfair and unnecessary. But threatening to shoot the decision-makers is no way to make a point.

A follow-up police search of Marshburn’s property lent credence to his words. Five firearms and a device resembling a rigged explosive were confiscated.

This isn’t the first time Guilford elected officials have been threatened. A few years ago, resident E.H. Hennis held up what appeared to be a pipe bomb at a county commissioners meeting and vowed “your body parts will be picked up and put in body bags.”

The outburst came after a long-simmering dispute over removing what county inspectors described as junk from his property. A jury subsequently convicted Hennis of a bomb hoax.
Unrepentant, he still relishes being a thorn in the county’s side and even made a bid, unsuccessfully, for a commissioner’s seat in the May 6 primary.

Whether it’s a misguided play for attention or angrily lashing out at authority figures, such potentially dangerous antics are unacceptable. There’s no choice but to take at face value each and every threat made against those who govern us.

Disputes, justified or not, must be addressed and solved through reasonable debate rather than intimidation.

The city can’t afford to dismiss any threat of violence — implied or otherwise. Whatever happens in court, the city has sent a clear message that it takes them seriously.