‘It cuts deep.’ Florida commissioner gets several ‘racist emails’ over COVID-19 rules

As Florida set another new single-day high in coronavirus cases at 8,942, local leaders are struggling to put policies in place to slow the spread of COVID-19, The Washington Post reported.

Les Miller, a Hillsborough County Commissioner and chair of its Hillsborough Emergency Policy Group, has received a lot of pushback from his community over ordinances and mandates he and his colleagues have ordered during the pandemic, according to WTSP. This week, after the emergency policy group mandated that residents wear face coverings in public, he received three threatening emails in one day, all of them referring to him as the “N-word,” the Tampa Bay Times reported.

Florida has a total of 122,960 cases of coronavirus as of Friday, 8,018 of which are in Hillsborough County, according to the Florida Department of Health. The state has had 3,366 deaths from COVID-19 and 132 of those were recorded in Hillsborough, FDOH said.

Over the course of the pandemic, Miller said has received more than 600 hateful emails, according to WTSP.

“Some of them have been downright racist emails,” Miller told WTSP. “And some people are just downright angry, they are nasty, they feel like we are violating on their rights on what they can cannot do and we get these emails.”

After Miller received this week’s round of emails, Hillsborough County posted a message on its Twitter page condemning the messages, WFTS reported.

“While Hillsborough County employees, our residents, our families, friends, and neighbors continue to confront a deadly pandemic, another more discriminate, and persistent disease poses a real threat: incomprehensible racism,” the statement reads. “Recently a series of vile and hateful, anonymous messages have been directed toward the Board of County Commissioners and specifically to Commission and Emergency Policy Group Chairman Lesley ‘Les’ Miller, Jr. Those who spread this hate hide behind the anonymity of the Internet and social media.”

Miller told his colleagues about the emails at a special commission and emergency policy group meeting Thursday, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

“It hurts. It really does. It cuts deep,” Miller said, according to the Times. “Especially when you’re trying to do what’s best for the people of this county.”

Miller gave the emails to county administrators and the sheriff’s office to look into the matter, according to the Times.

“While there does not appear to be a specific threat made, if the emails meet the statutory requirements of a hate crime, we will investigate further,” the sheriff’s office told the Times.

This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 7:58 PM.