A Dem councilman who voted against the flying of the “thin blue line” flag in Wethersfield, Conn., to honor a slain state trooper says he and his family have been getting threats — prompting him to call the cops.
Miki Duric — a councilman in the small, historic, agricultural town just south of Hartford — told The Post on Friday that he voted against the flag-raising earlier in the week on procedural grounds, not because of its content.
But that hasn’t stopped “all the hate, all the threats I received personally the past few days,’’ he said.
“I got some threats, me and my family. We notified the police,’’ said Duric, a 39-year-old Bosnian refugee with a wife and four young children.
The council — which flipped from Republican to Democratic in 2023 after four years under GOP control — voted 5-3 along party lines Monday against temporarily hoisting the pro-police flag in front of town hall.
Democratic Councilwoman Emily Zambrello later told a local news outlet that the flag “represents racism and antagonism to many, many people.
“And if you don’t personally believe that, and you fly at your own house and you think it means something to you, that is much more positive — it’s just not how many people feel about it.
“It’s not appropriate to raise it over our town hall, especially when our flag policy prohibits us from doing anything associated with hate.”
Republican Councilman Rich Bailey had proposed raising the flag in honor of State Trooper Aaron Pelletier, 34, who was mowed down by a hit-and-run driver in a traffic stop last week.
The council had already voted to fly LGBTQ flag in honor of June’s Pride Month.
“It’s very disheartening,’’ Bailey told The Post on Friday of the police flag diss.
Asked if he was surprised by the vote, the pol replied, “God, Yeah.
“My father was a policeman for 32 years,’’ Bailey said. “The whole thing is just a shame.’’
He said his late dad, who retired as a Wethersfield lieutenant, “would be very disappointed.
“These guys risk their lives for us every day. I can’t really even fathom this, I can’t.’’
Bailey added that his heart goes out to hero Officer Pelletier’s widow.
“I feel so bad to her,’’ Bailey said. “She has to read all this stuff.’’
Duric would not comment on whether he supports the “thin blue line” flag, which has been associated with the Blue Lives Matter movement and came about in response to the controversial Black Lives Matter push.
Duric said that according to council policy, if someone wants to fly a special flag at town hall, a request must be made 30 days beforehand.
“The bottom line for me is, it was not about the actual flag — it’s about the policy that we have. The policy outlines exactly how the proposal should come in,’’ the pol told The Post.
He claimed that the flag request was made by the Republicans simply to “cause hate.
“It wasn’t about honoring an officer, just to make us [Democrats] look bad,’’ Duric said.
But Republican Councilwoman Brianna Timbro said, “I honestly thought [the vote] would be a pretty straightforward ask, just given the tragedy and how the whole state was behind [Pelletier].
“The wording that was used to describe the flag and what it represented was really ignorant and really biased,” she told The Post.
Timbro said the support for the council members who backed the flag’s flying has been tremendous.
“My phone has been blowing up since the council meeting Monday night,’’ she said. “I think it speaks volumes.
“I’ve gotten text messages from people I’ve gone to high school with who I haven’t talked to in years thanking me for my vote.’’
Additional reporting by Caitlin McCormack
