Police in Homewood, Alabama have just arrested a man in connection with a threatening note left at a downtown hair salon earlier this summer.
83-year-old James Willougby Wood is facing one misdemeanor charge of harassing communication after he allegedly taped a note on the backdoor of Salon U that read:
This is not San Francisco or or downtown Birmingham. This is Homewood which is a religious and family city. We suggest that you remove that flag before it’s too late. We are concerned citizens. Goodbye.
The note was in response to a rainbow flag the salon had displayed out front during Pride month. It was discovered by an employee as he was leaving work, who alerted the salon’s owner Issam Bajalia.
Bajalia called the letter “a little bit alarming,” particularly the part about removing the flag “before it’s too late.” So he called police and the Hate Crime Division of the FBI.
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“It’s 2019,” Bajalia says. “There’s no room for this anymore.”
Detectives tracked Wood down by reviewing surveillance video and then picking him out of a photo lineup.
According to WBRC-TV, he turned himself in yesterday. Bond has been set at $300.
Related: Kid leaves note on gay couple’s door thanking them for giving her the courage to come out
TomG
Some people just don’t seem to understand that we’re a democracy and EVERYONE, no matter who they happen to be have their rights. This guy must be one of Trump’s fascists, either that, or being that he’s old, is suffering from dementia.
IWantAFullBeard
It’s America! Where you are freest on earth. That is unless you contradict the authoritarian sensibilities of the religious right.
Why didn’t the salon just respond to the note with another one saying “This isn’t North Korea. This is America and I can put anything I want on my private property.”
Mack
It’s the south. They believe the Bible is the Constitution and nothing else EXCEPT when comes to the Second Amendment-then that is Bible II. They have the right dimwitted preachers/ministers who preach hatred and bigotry 24/7.
JClark
Yes, San Francisco and Downtown Birmingham, the two places I think of when I want to let my hair down in a gay-affirming travel destination.
Heywood Jablowme
Actually it piques my interest. Is there some gay fun in downtown Birmingham that most of us northern gays just haven’t heard about yet?
Hdtex
I lived in Birmingham for a number of years. They indeed have a very large, very fun LGBTQ community. Met lots of great people there.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Somebody please get the kids tied up in his basement out of there!!!
Chrisk
He wants to spend his last few years doing this? Amazing that you can live a whole lifetime and not learn anything. Just stuck in your hate of others.
Cam
Bigotry is getting expensive, even in Alabama apparently.
Invader7
I’d tell Miss SourPussFace to PHUCK off and PHUCK yourself , if you can find that little gerkin and get it up, you closet case ANAL ORIFICE !!! Notice how a LOT of these COWARDLY homophobes leave notes. Because they’re spineless, craven, weak little putzes who can’t /won’t confront the person(s) they’re targeting. Because they’ll get read like filth and deservedly,so. The mentally UNSTABLE religious homophobe lunatics are losing their doo doo !!!
JClark
So I guess this comment meets Queerty’s standards prohibiting mean-spirited comments? Not that I disagree with the sentiment.
scotty
dude should just suck a dick already. believe me, it helps.