The Atlanta Police Department said it is aware of a series of racially charged emails sent to Ebenezer Baptist Church in the wake of Confederate battle flags placed on the church’s grounds.
At least one email takes the church and its pastor, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, to task for focusing on the flag and not black crime.
A spokesman for the APD said detectives “are aware of the incident and are looking into it.”
Church surveillance footage shows two men placing Confederate flags at Ebenezer and Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in the early morning hours of July 30. Investigators have been working to identify the men and their motive.
Warnock has called the act “terroristic,” and the local NAACP and SCLC have called on Gov. Nathan Deal to remove “symbols of hate” from government property, including the Confederate flag and Confederate figures from Stone Mountain.
Ebenezer office manager Marvel Leverett told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Tuesday that she had deleted the racially charged emails she received but gave printed copies to authorities at the National Park Service, which oversees the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site.
She said Warnock had also received similar emails.
One of the emails forwarded to the AJC defended the Confederate flag and said the church should be more concerned about violence by blacks toward whites.
“The Confederate flag will rise again, and you can’t prevent it,” the email said.
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