WKOW-TV, the ABC affiliate in Madison, Wisconsin, is reporting that Wisconsinites for Safe Mining, an organization that supports an open-pit iron ore mine in Wisconsin's Penokee Hills region, used Facebook to make death threats against four female anti-mining activists.
One of the four women threatened, Lisa Wells, alerted law enforcement about the matter:
A local woman is asking the Dane County Sheriff to investigate a pro-mining group for making a threat against her and three other women on Facebook last week.
In a July 10 Facebook post, The Wisconsin Reporter asked readers what they thought of Gogebic Taconite's decision to post armed guards outside of its northern Wisconsin iron mine site.
In one response, a Facebook user named Terry Dipper identifies Lisa Wells and three other women as making threats against the mine as justification for the guards.
In a post directly follow Dipper's, Wisconsinites For Safe Mining wrote: "We have initiated a shoot on sight order for the malcontents that you have listed. Trespassing on a mining site = genocide."
Two of the other three women who were threatened by the pro-mine group were identified as Roberta Retrum and Barbara With. The fourth woman was not identified in the WKOW report.
Just when I thought that things couldn't get any uglier in Wisconsin's Northwoods, the pro-mine supporters are now threatening to kill people who are opposed to the proposed mine. That kind of conduct is highly unacceptable, and whoever was operating the "Wisconsinites for Safe Mining" Facebook page at the time the death threat was made should have criminal charges filed against them.