Article snippet: ATLANTA — The brick, adorned with a threatening message, crashed through the window of a prominent contractor’s dining room here in September 2015, apparently sometime between dusk and dawn. For some time, news of the incident failed to reverberate much beyond the home itself. The same went for the dead rodents that had been simultaneously placed on the doorstep of the contractor, Elvin R. Mitchell Jr., and the message: “ER, keep your mouth shut!!! Shut up.” But in recent weeks, the brick, the rodents and the threat have become troubling symbols of a widening federal bribery and corruption investigation revolving around the granting of city contracts. The inquiry has already resulted in Mr. Mitchell and a second contractor pleading guilty to federal bribery charges, and it is spreading unease through the civic culture of Atlanta. Municipal contracting here has served a historically important role in the effort to spread wealth to minority businesses, but it has also, at times, been a source of explosive scandal. None of the evidence has implicated the city’s term-limited Democratic mayor, Kasim Reed, one of the South’s most prominent African-American politicians. But the situation has prompted Mr. Reed to defend his legacy, and to make a forceful, and disarmingly personal, proclamation of innocence. “I have never taken a bribe,” Mr. Reed, 47, said at a recent news conference at City Hall, where he made public 406 boxes of documents that he said federal investigat... Link to the full article to read more