A Minneapolis City Council candidate publicly encouraged Black Lives Matter rioters who “feel like burning sh-t down” to target wealthy communities instead of poor ones.
Police are now investigating her for making a “credible threat,” according to reports.
Margarita “Rita” Ortega wrote on her personal Facebook page that “the poor community is not your oppressors” and claimed that the wealthy community of Lake of the Isles has “more then [sic] needed.”
“Just a personal thought — just in case y’all feel like burning shit down, the poor community is not your oppressors. FYI — lake of the isles has more then [sic] needed and won’t be missed,” Ortega wrote.
Margarita Ortega, running for #Mpls City Council Ward 9, suggests that those who want to burn things go to Lake of the Isles area.
Posted on Facebook. She has since changed the 1st post to private/not public.@ritaforward9
These are your replacements for current incompetence. pic.twitter.com/9MGv8413Mc
— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) April 16, 2021
Prior to running for City Council, Ortega was a policy aide at Minneapolis City Hall and spent ten years working in city government.
In a subsequent post, Ortega doubled down saying that wealthy neighborhoods “have the insurance and means to rebuild.”
“Division has been created and continues not by my hands. I’m not the greedy one living in million dollar mansions while people are sleeping in tents and on the street,” she said.
Alpha News MN pointed out that the candidate was profiled in the Washington Post Monday and said she has “always felt we’ve never really needed the police.”
“The only way forward is abolishing the police,” she said on Twitter shortly after Wright’s death. “No institution should be allowed to murder in our communities with impunity.”
She has also tweeted about her disdain for police, writing on April 11 that "the only way forward is abolishing the police. No institution should be allowed to murder in our communities with impunity. As a mother my prayers are with Daunte Wright and his family. He should be alive right now."
Wright escaped handcuffs, jumped in his vehicle, and was behaving intensely erratic during what should have been a routine arrest when he was shot.
Minneapolis Crime Watch tweeted that residents of Lake of the Isles contacted the police with concerns and it is now being investigated as a “credible threat.”
"A resident from the Lake of the Isles area (and others) contacted MPD about @ritaforward9's comments & summarized the reply they got saying that it's being considered a "credible threat" & that person/s in MPD have forwarded the info to other units for investigation," Minneapolis Crime Watch wrote.
FOLLOW UP: A resident from the Lake of the Isles area (and others) contacted MPD about @ritaforward9's comments & summarized the reply they got saying that it's being considered a "credible threat" & that person/s in MPD have forwarded the info to other units for investigation. pic.twitter.com/5pPbgaioil
— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) April 17, 2021