A Cherokee Antique Row (St. Louis) business owner says she and others in the area are being harassed for displaying flags supporting police on their storefronts.
Cherri Elder owns Elder’s Antiques, a family owned and operated business that has been open for 32 years.
She’s formed relationships with the police that patrol the area and wanted to offer her support by displaying an American flag with a thin blue line in front of her store. However, the flag wasn’t accepted by everyone in the area.
“People came by, they would cuss at you, harass you,” she said, “They would harass the customers.”
She eventually took the flag down to avoid any more confrontations.
“I thought things were getting better,” said Elder, “but apparently it’s not.”
KMOV reports that a month later she found a handwritten letter posted on the front window of her shop that read: “Pig supporters not welcome. Flag goes down or you go down.”
On the right corner, there was a symbol most commonly connected with the Communist Party and the letters MLM, which often stand for Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, related to a communist political philosophy that builds upon Marxism.
Elder doesn’t think she’ll be placing the flag back up but isn’t letting the message intimidate her.