State investigators were trying Tuesday to track down the author of a threatening e-mail to a state senator that said her grandchildren “will pay.”
Sen. Nancy Spence, the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Education Committee, said the Colorado Bureau of Investigation was tracing significant leads.
The e-mailer blamed Spence for the public release of an embarrassing e-mail in which House Education Committee chairman Michael Merrifield, D-Colorado Springs, said there “must be a special place in hell” for backers of school vouchers and charter schools.
The e-mail sent to Spence on Saturday said “we are going to take it out on your grandchildren. … We know where they live (we have contacts all over the country) and where they go to school.”
It was signed “the edcation (sic) panthers” and came from “Ed Barger” at “cea98barger@yahoo.com.”
The author might have used “cea” as an acronym for the Colorado Education Association, but the e-mail is from a Yahoo account.
CBI director Robert Cantwell would not comment on the investigation but said the bureau does not believe the e-mail is connected to CEA.
The senator notified authorities of the e-mail over the weekend. State officers then alerted police in the Colorado towns where Spence’s grandchildren live, she said.
The threat highlights the divisive fight between charter school supporters and their opponents, who say charter schools drain money from the public school system.
Merrifield’s e-mail was posted by the right-leaning blog facethestate.com, which got the e-mail through an open-records request.
Spence said she had nothing to do with the release of Merrifield’s e-mail and considers him a friend, though they often disagree politically.
“Maybe people that are out of the Capitol would think we have an adversarial relationship, but we don’t,” she said.
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
