Ocean Springs residents want answers to threatening flyers

Concerned residents of Ocean Springs attended tonight’s board of aldermen meeting in hopes of receiving answers from the white supremacist flyers that were distributed last week.

Dozens spoke up wanting answers as to what is being done when they received these flyers, leaving some feeling mortified and scared to live in Ocean Springs.

Resident Beth Jones explains she felt that the board showed a lack of empathy to their citizens and felt that nothing is being done to resolve the issue or move forward. “The reason why I was so particularly concerned when the flag was resurrected, so to speak, at city hall was because it was a move backwards and it was clearly intended to send a message of some kind. So my question is what is that message? If it isn’t discriminatory do you care that it feels that way to many of your constituents and I think that from the outcome of the meeting that’s a resounding no.”

However, Ocean Springs Mayor Shea Dobson had to say that “we’ve seen heated rhetoric only increase and that’s why we’re having the troubles that we are having here in Ocean Springs and not in any other cities that fly the state flag.” Mayor Dobson also said, “The reason this is happening here is because extremism, extreme people on both sides, keeps escalating and escalating the situation. So, what we need to do is say we’ve had enough of the extremists, we’ve heard from them for months and months. They’ve only made problems worse. We need the moderates to say, you can, it is possible to honor and respect our state without being a racist. We need people who say we want the flag down, but I don’t think everyone who disagrees with me is a racist or white supremacist.”

Mayor Dobson says the Ocean Springs Police Department is asking for tips or if anyone has any video footage or any other information or any other information of who distributed the flyers please contact the police department.