A Black, gay activist in Klamath Falls, Oregon, has gone public with threats of stoning he received from another citizen during a recent city council meeting.
A shaken Eric Osterberg, the assistant city manager, told his colleagues that a local resident–who remains anonymous–threatened him before the meeting. Osterberg was slated to deliver a special presentation on an equity task force during the gathering.
“I just want to start the meeting off by pointing to you that just having a simple conversation about racism in our community is gaining that level of violence, that threat of violence,” Osterberg told the assembly before the presentation. He then shared that the assailant had told him “brought a rock to this meeting” and accused him of being “a sinner” for his sexuality and “of spreading Aids here in the community.” The anonymous attacker also accused Osterberg of blasphemy for “trying to say that I am the second coming of Christ.”
Related: A gay couple suffered years of homophobic harassment. Now, they’ve unmasked the culprit.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
“You are a sinner and you need to be stoned. That is why I brought this stone,” the man allegedly told Osterberg before presenting a rock the size of a human head.
Yesterday, Eric Osterberg, a Klamath Falls (Oregon) official who is also gay and Black, was making a presentation about equity.
Before he did that, a Christian man threatened him, holding a rock, saying he deserved to be stoned.
Here's Osterberg explaining what happened. pic.twitter.com/dstzoFkYFP
— Hemant Mehta (@hemantmehta) August 4, 2021
“I’m not sure if he was arrested or just asked to go home,” Osterberg said during the meeting. “I would hope that he was arrested since he made a direct threat to me, and I think it would be pretty bad if he was allowed to just leave.”
As it turned out, Klamath Falls police chief Robert Dentinger removed Osterberg’s harasser from the scene, but declined to arrest him. “As of (Monday) night there was not enough information to arrest him,” Dentinger told reporters. “But as things change, we are going to have to talk to him.”
“I was very surprised to see that there was going to be a direct threat of violence against me personally. I did not anticipate that,” Osterberg told the local newspaper Herald and News. “I was frankly more concerned for the safety of the task force members, and we talked about and kind of strategized how we were going to keep ourselves safe coming into the meeting.”
“I think this proves that there is such a violent reaction to the idea that there is even racism in the community,” he added. “That people are being threatened by violence in order to try and silence them. And I think that is pretty damning of the community.”
Eric Osterberg has announced he will leave Klamath Falls later this month to accept a position as a city manager in Ferguson, Missouri.
Mister P
Mad Cawthorn is on to something. We need to start taking bibles away from people.
Chrisk
Wow. The nutcase comes to a city council meeting and threatens to kill a council member while brandishing the rock he meant to do it with and the Police just let him walk away. Anywhere else he’d be sitting in a jail cell right now.
Obviously the Police Chief is a bigoted POS himself.
Mack
I think the Police Chief is of the same political party as the one with the rock. The Piece of Shit Party headed by the Orange Turd.
Kangol2
So a White Christianist fanatic believes being gay equals having AIDS–where have I heard that before?–and thinks it’s OK to threaten an out Black gay man with stoning. And the cops basically don’t arrest him. Got it. Let the same thing happen to the Christianist fanatic and there’d be an uproar. On a different note, I hope Eric Osterberg has a better time in Ferguson, Missouri. St. Louis County sounds like it has good share of crazies running around too these days. Watch the video (Google it) of the anti-mask protests at the recent County Council meeting there and you may wonder how did so many people completely lose their minds.
Fahd
City Manager is a great job that pays well in some places, for example, Los Angeles suburbs, but I guess sometimes it means you have to live in places like Klamath Falls, a remote country place where everything is about fighting for water rights with California and making death threats against the gay city manager. This is not okay, but neither it is very surprising, regrettably.
BigJohnSF
If I had to attend an Oregon city council meeting, I would want to be a little stoned.
muscl954
If he’s leaving Klamath Falls and taking a job in Ferguson, Missouri then he’s “moving from the frying pan into the fire” as far as racial discrimination and prejudice goes.
Heywood Jablowme
Ferguson is majority black, 67.4% in the 2010 census. It was where police shot Michael Brown to death in 2014.
HenryHawke
Mr. Osterberg, telling the story of what happened to him just before the meeting definitively proves the city council has failed when it comes to racism within the community and has turned a blind eye to the dangers posed by these right wing religious fanatics. I would say that something needs to be done before someone is seriously hurt or killed, but we’ve already seen that in all the video from the 1/6 insurrection, and yet cowardly politicians are denying that it took place and that those involved who were clearly rioters were nothing more than peaceful tourists. Wake up people! Those politicians and all follow the former guy are a threat to America and all those democratic values we hold dear!
GayEGO
The sinner is the so called Christian man, not Eric Osterberg and the sinner should be jailed for a hate crime!
dirtypierre
“But as things change, we are going to have to talk to him.” means if enough people complain we might get off our doughnut cultured fat asses and do something.
Cam
And he should have been arrested for a hate crime. Tired of these people being excused just because they haven’t killed somebody YET.
cuteguy
Hiding behind religion to threaten the safety of a protected oppressed class should be considered a hate crime. The GQP will never make that amendment of adding religion bc it will “divide us more”. And why is this perpetrator kept anonymous? Why is this sicko being protected?
My2CentsWorth
It may have been in Klamath Falls where a lot of people took it in their own hands to defend the city from bus loads of Blacks who George Soros was sending to the town. I read an article about this and saw the photos of the armed people milling around waiting for the invaders to come and vandalize their town.