Since the cell phone video was posted on YouTube, the officers and their families have received threatening phone calls, emails and Facebook messages. In some cases, California residents who share the same name as the officers have mistakenly received threats. A shop in Glendale was flooded with angry phone calls because the storeowner’s name is the same as Hawthorne police spokesman Lt. Scott Swain.
This has led to criminal threats of harm directed not only at city employees, but also at similarly-named public citizens who just happen to live and work in our surrounding region.”
