POWELL COUNTY, Ky. (WKYT/Gray News) – A Kentucky man is accused of placing decorations in his front yard that showed fake bodies labeled with city officials.
“This is something you just don’t see every day,” Powell County Judge Executive Eddie Barnes said.
Residents passing the home on Court Street saw the fake body bags labeled with the titles of local officials in what was described as a “threatening” Halloween decoration display.
According to an arrest citation, 58-year-old Stephan Marcum was arrested Saturday for terroristic threatening after Commonwealth’s Attorney Miranda King reported his yard display to a Kentucky State Police trooper.
“At first I didn’t know what to think about it because I actually drove by and [saw] it in his yard and I was thinking, wow, that’s kinda harsh,” Barnes said.
According to Barnes, he’s known Marcum for decades and says he can be a good person, but disagrees with how he chose to express himself.
UK Political Science Associate Professor Stephen Voss says while Americans are protected by the First Amendment for free speech, threats are not protected.
“If you’re actively threatening someone in a terrorizing way, that may not be covered by the general right to free expression,” Voss said.
Voss says political polarization isn’t unique to Kentucky.
“I think we’re seeing a little bit less tolerance for violent communication or violent imagery because there seems to be a greater risk people will enact it or carry it out,” Voss said.
He continued, “A display or statement that might have been taken as somewhat tongue-in-cheek or almost a joke in the past or a less polarized, conflict-ridden age may not be seen as funny or as innocent these days.”
Marcum is currently being held at the Powell County Detention Center on a $5,000 bond.
Police say the decorations were taken to Kentucky State Police Post 8 in Morehead.