Broncos’ Marshall receives threatening, racist letter
Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall knew his protest of the national anthem, which consisted of him kneeling silently while the song was being played before Denver’s first eight games, would spark controversy and anger. But Marshall didn’t expect the type of outrage he received in a racist, threatening letter that he released Friday on Instagram.
“It’s extremely concerning,” Marshall said. “I wanted to expose that racism still exists. That’s the reason I put it out there — to expose what everybody thought maybe was put to bed. But that stuff still exists. … We still have a long way to go as people. People still hate each other.”
Coach Gary Kubiak said the Broncos were aware of the letter and have their security staff investigating it. The letter, which was sent anonymously postmarked from “Mrs. Jackson’s sixth grade class,” was delivered to Marshall at Broncos headquarters two weeks ago disguised as fan mail.
Marshall brought the letter to the team’s attention when he received it.
“Disgusted, disheartening, deplorable. You can use a bunch of words for it,” said Marshall, who has received a lot of hate mail, but the threats made this one more alarming. “That stood out to me that somebody would have that much hate or malice to send it to me. It takes so much energy to hate, and I just don’t understand that.”
Marshall’s two-part post had a caption that read: “The hatred by some against people of color is one of the reasons we are where we’re at in the world today, and they wonder why we feel the way we do and take the stances that we take. I received this letter at work.”
“I was not much aware of that until this morning,” Kubiak said. “But I know that our organization is on top of it.”
Marshall, who won’t play in Sunday’s road game against the Tennessee Titans because of a hamstring injury, was taken aback by the letter. Fellow linebackers Shane Ray and Corey Nelson were among Marshall’s teammates who read the letter and were bothered by what they read.
Marshall said he’s not afraid and doesn’t plan to have more personal security. He said he believes the Broncos’ security staff found fingerprints on the letter that may help identify who sent it.
Marshall hasn’t directly involved police, leaving the matter to the Broncos’ security staff.