A California county supervisor was accused at a Shasta County supervisors meeting of being a follower of Satan after it was revealed her license plate number is "666," a symbol of evil and a connection to "The Beast" that's mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the Bible.
District 3 Supervisor Mary Rickert faced unexpected criticism as she arrived at the meeting by District 2 candidate Laura Hobbs, who brandished a photocopy of a license plate as evidence.
"Are you a Satanist?" Hobbs asked Rickert after holding up a photograph of Rickert's license plate.
"That came from the [DMV], I did not choose that. They sent that to me...I did not ask for that number...Call the [DMV]," Rickert responded.
For which Hobbs replied, "For the love of God, repent," before leaving.
"You just embarrassed yourself," Rickert responded. "That's terrible. That's the license plate [the DMV] sent to me. I did not request those numbers. It's an invasion of my privacy that people are going around sharing my license plate number and I really resent that. Mrs. Hobbs, you should be embarrassed. You should be totally embarrassed."
"I feel a little violated that my license plate was photographed and then it was altered, because it didn't show that they're specialty plates for agriculture. When you order those through the DMV, they send you whatever numbers, whatever letters, that are on there. I didn't request-I didn't ask for special numbers or special letters, or anything," Rickert told KRCR.
"It's a little unsettling to have someone going around stalking you, and stalking your car and your license plate, and showing it in a board meeting."
Shasta County voters appear to have grown weary of divisive political stunts and tactics given recent election results.
The county has been considered a hard-right from a political point of view since 2016 after being more moderately Republican in the past. But the people recently voted out a major catalyst for the current Shasta County political atmosphere as former chair of the Board of Supervisors Patrick Jones was soundly defeated in the Super Tuesday election as opponent Matt Plummer garnered almost 60% of the vote.
Jones, a gun store manager, is considered by analysts to be an ultra-conservative who helped lead his Northern California locality into an era of election denialism and hard-right governance-even working with militia members and secessionists.
He even helped the county remove Dominion voting machines and return to hand counting the ballots.
Supervisor Kevin Crye, an ally of Jones, barely won a recall election by 46 votes. He made headlines when he enlisted the support of MyPillow CEO and election denier Mike Lindell to support the GOP push to remove Dominion voting machines in the county.
