'It gave me chills': Massachusetts lawmaker threatened after urging extended coronavirus lockdown

A commenter on the state lawmaker's Facebook page posted a photo of a firearm and told him to 'rethink' his decision to advocate for an extended lockdown

Police are investigating a threat made against Massachusetts state lawmaker Mike Connolly after Mr Connolly signed onto a letter urging Governor Charlie Baker to extend the commonwealth's lockdown installed to curb the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr Connolly, a Democrat who represents the towns of Somerville and Cambridge, just north of the Charles River from Boston, told The Boston Globe over the weekend that the threatening message was shared on one of his Facebook posts in response to the letter.

In a pair of comments on 15 May, an account with the name "Acile Lopes" told Mr Connolly to "[shut] your f***ing mouth or we will show up at your house like we did Baker’s house , you communist pig!" and later posted an image of an assault rifle with the message, "You might want to rethink your letter."

Mr Connolly told the Globe that he was "taken aback" and that he'd spoken with a detective from the Cambridge police department about the matter.

“It gave me the chills to be honest,” he said of the comments.

Cambridge police later confirmed to the Globe that Mr Connolly had made contact with them about the a threat linked to the letter he and 11 other Democratic state lawmakers sent to Mr Baker, who is a Republican.

The letter urges Mr Baker not to reopen Massachusetts for business until if fully meets the guidelines of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organisation, which the commonwealth so far has not.

The WHO advises regions to get below a 10 per cent infection rate for new people taking tests for Covid-19 before beginning to reopen the local economy.

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Massachusetts has been stuck at around 12 per cent for some time.

“We’ve been stuck at 12 per cent for several days and I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t follow the advice of the scientists and the epidemiologists to tell us we have to do more in terms of testing,” Mr Connolly said in an interview with Boston 25 News.

While many of Mr Connolly's recent Facebook posts about keeping the commonwealth closed at least through early June have received comments from angry constituents, that is not reflective of the overall sentiment of people in Massachusetts. Recent polling has found that most people support keeping socially distancing measures in place until the health crisis subsides.

“It seems like an unfortunate reflection of the rhetoric that comes from Donald Trump and others,” Mr Connolly told the Globe of the social media backlash.