The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

FNM Deputy Leader Loretta Butler-Turner yesterday expressed concern for her welfare and that of her family’s after death threats and demands that she resign from front-line politics in March of this year.

She said she felt compelled to make the matter public now after receiving an ominous “warning” by phone Tuesday night, which has left her unsettled.

The Long Island MP said she initially turned the matter over to police for investigation in March after receiving a threatening letter in the mail. However, she has heard little from police since making her report.

In the threatening letter, which was turned over to authorities at the time, Mrs Butler-Turner said the author went into graphic detail of what was to happen to her in the moments leading up to her murder.

Mrs Butler-Turner said she was contacted by someone on Tuesday night who warned that she should be “very guarded and careful”. She told reporters at a press conference at her home that while she does not fear death, there is a “very real concern of cowards who want to make such threats.”

“I think that it is important that the people know,” Mrs Butler-Turner said.

“I don’t know where to go from here in terms of what I should do next, given the fact that at this stage I think three months is a very long time to have heard back from the police department in regards to my initial threat. So I am sharing this with the public at this point to say that what I have received in the last 24 hours raises the level of concern that I once again have.

“But I think the fear that I have now is that outside of the letter, before when I got the death threats, I knew that something was done. I’m not sure what has been done since March and that somebody can come to me in recent hours and say to me that this is what they have heard and I need to be very guarded and aware of what I am doing, where I am going.

“That for me causes concern because I am a person that drives everywhere. I have no fear of where I want to go and I pretty much go by myself and that’s where I am at. I am now considering if I have to do something to take extraordinary measures.”

Mrs Butler-Turner said she has lived her life normally in spite of the threat against her life.

“This is not the first death threat (that I have gotten),” she added. “I got two threats during the time that I was a government minister. (Those) threats were very similar in nature to the threats that I got three months ago.”

Mrs Butler-Turner said she met with high ranking officers, including Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade, head of the Central Detective Unit Superintendent Paul Rolle, and Inspector Mark Barett of the Cyber Crimes Unit during an initial meeting three months ago at the House of Assembly about the threatening letter.

There have been no updates into the investigation up to this point, she said.

However, yesterday, Mr Rolle told The Tribune the matter is still being looked into.

When asked what measures, if any, police put in place since Mrs Butler-Turner’s initial complaint, Mr Rolle said: “I won’t comment on what we did I will leave it right there.”

In spite of the threat she said she has no plans to leave politics.

“I plan to continue with what I am doing,” she said.

While her residence is in a neighbourhood subject to intermittent police patrols, Mrs Butler-Turner said she had not noticed any increased surveillance in the area.

Mrs Butler-Turner added that she always feels very comfortable in the community where she was born. She said there was no reason for her to fear an environment which she knows well.

“I have shared with my husband and children. I have shared with my siblings. We are a praying family and we believe in God.  I know they are all praying that I continue to do what is right and that God will protect me. I am sure that I am in His hands,” she said.