OMAHA, Neb. — District 2 constituent Steve Amundson, fed up with the protracted process of fixing the potholes on his street, wrote Representative Burt Johnson numerous winding screeds that inevitably come across like terrifying death threats, sources confirmed.
“I think that Rep. Johnson has his heart in the right place and the pothole repair delays are probably due to government red tape. And that’s exactly what I attempt to express in my emails,” said Amundson.” But somehow I end up mentioning that I know the exact route he takes home from work, that I know where his daughters go to school, and that he better have eyes on the back of his head. I do have genuine grievances with Rep. Johnson but have no intention of running him down with my truck in front of his eight-year-old, like my message implies. Every goddamn time I proofread one of my emails it’s full of ‘snuff you out’ this and ‘better fucking watch yourself’ that. This last time I accidentally changed my email text color to blood red and couldn’t figure out how to correct it. Probably wasn’t the best look.”
Politicians and other public servants in Amundson’s district are exceedingly familiar with his tendency to jump from policy disagreements to what he’d do if he had them tied up.
“Steve? He must have called me a ‘dead man walking’ three or four times since the school levy passed,” said school board member Alan Strickland, another frequent recipient of Amundson’s alarming emails. “I’ll start reading his message and for the first paragraph or two it’s a pretty boilerplate request that schools find creative ways to save taxpayer money. But by the email’s end I’m on the phone with law enforcement requesting additional security to escort my family to the grocery store.”
Omaha police officer Gregory Winfield noted that there wasn’t much to do about the issue.
“At his core Steve’s not a monster, but if he did a search-and-delete for words like ‘bleed,’ ‘wipe out,’ and ‘suffer’ before hitting the send button he’d save us all a lot of trouble,” said Winfield. “Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do about email threats. You have to be brutally attacked, maimed, and/or murdered before law enforcement can have a look-see. Believe me, I wish we could. A good 80% of our calls deal with email death threats. The other 20% is old-fashioned handwritten letters signed in blood.”
At press time, Amundson took a break from politics and instead emailed some veiled threats to his cable company.