ROANOKE, Va., Dec. 12 (UPI) -- A black Miami Herald columnist told a jury in Virginia he was terrified when he found his address and phone number on a white supremacist Web site.
Leonard Pitts testified for the prosecution Friday at the trial of William White in U.S. District Court in Roanoke.
Pitts, whose column is nationally syndicated, said he first heard from White after he wrote a column in 2007 about claims a Tennessee homicide had been ignored by the media because the killers were black and the victims white. He got a late-night telephone call the day the column ran -- his wife hung up on the caller -- followed the next day by an e-mail.
The e-mail, which used a racist slur, included his home address in Bowie, Md., and his home phone number. White also posted the information on his Web site.
The Herald hired security guards for Pitts and an editor asked White to remove his personal information. White refused.
"Frankly, if some loony took the information and killed him, I wouldn't shed a tear," White said. "That also goes for your whole newsroom."
