Salem has every right to be angry about the City Council’s decision to keep Kyle Hedquist on the Community Police Review Board. People can call it irresponsible. People can argue the council didn’t do enough homework before knowingly reappointing someone with a murder conviction to a board connected to policing and public trust. People can demand a tighter vetting process, clearer standards, and a straight answer about how this decision was made.
All of that is fair.
What is not fair—and not acceptable—is the harassment and threatening language. Salem is better than this.
In a public statement this week, Salem City Counselor Mai Vang (Ward 6) described a stream of abusive, degrading messages sent to her city email and personal social media. She said some crossed into threatening language. She said people have contacted her employer demanding she be fired. Here are some of the messages that Vang posted on her Facebook account:
“Hey nasty wh*re, I pray that you and your entire family suffers the same pop to the dome.”
“You are a depraved wh*re.”
“You ignorant piece of trash! How f_king stupid are you? You really need to be locked up in a mental institution. You shouldn’t be allowed within twenty feet of any normal people!”
“You pieces of human sh*t … Everyone who voted to keep this murderer on the board should have one of your family members executed by a criminal scumbag.”
That is not “speaking truth to power.” That is intimidation and harassment. It’s an attempt to scare an elected official into silence or submission. It’s cowardly, and it stains every legitimate argument being made about this appointment.
If someone is sending threats or vile messages to a public official, they are not defending victims, improving accountability, or making Salem safer. They’re teaching the next generation that politics is just bullying with a better microphone. Salem cannot continue normalizing this.
We can debate rehabilitation. We can debate public safety. We can debate what standards should apply to boards and commissions—especially boards tied to policing. We can demand transparency about what the council knew, what it weighed, and why it voted the way it did. We can insist that “trust us” is not a process.
But we do not get to threaten people.
This moment needs the whole community to draw a hard line: criticism is allowed; harassment is not. Protest is allowed; intimidation is not. Elections are allowed; coercion is not.
If you want to be heard, show up and do it the right way.
The City Council is meeting at 6 p.m. Jan. 7 in Loucks Auditorium at the Salem Public Library, 585 Liberty St. SE. Bring your questions. Bring receipts. Demand clear standards for appointments and clear explanations for controversial votes. Ask who vetted what, when, and ask for transparency… Most importantly, speak like a respectful grown adult.
No decision—no matter how heated—gives anyone permission to degrade, threaten, or terrorize someone who ran for office and showed up to do the work. Salem can argue and debate without acting like this. If we can’t manage that basic standard, we won’t.
