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GOP flag office vandalized Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=96592http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=96592
Flag GOP office vandalized
By SETH MULLER
Sun Staff Reporter
10/23/2004
Political motivations turned criminal Thursday night or early Friday when vandals smashed a large glass door with a section of cinder block at the Republican Party headquarters in downtown Flagstaff.
A pile of shattered glass joined egg shells filling the entryway to the GOP offices, located on Humphreys Street across from Wheeler Park. Fliers with information criticizing President Bush were staked up outside the door.
It joined a spate of torn and damaged signs reported by both Republicans and Democrats throughout the Flagstaff area. On Sunday, the campaign for 1st Congressional District Democratic challenger Paul Babbitt reported a dozen signs torn and damaged at its volunteer office on Verde Street.
Local GOP coordinator John Echols said he received at 7 a.m. phone call from an employee at Enterprise Rent-a-Car next door reporting the vandalism. Echols arrived to find the smashed door, but little else in the way of damage. Still, police are considerting the crime as a felony because cost to replace the door is expected to exceed $1,000.
"Thankfully, none of the office had been vandalized," Echols said, but speculated that the vandals most likely intended to cause more damage. "I think they may have been spooked. We are on a major thoroughfare."
For Echols, it's nothing new. In 2002, someone threw a rock through a window at the Republican headquarters, then located at the Bashas' plaza at the north end of Humprheys Street.
"I still have that rock from two years ago," Echols said, pulling it out of the closest in his headquarters office.
Echols also reported that a number of Bush-Cheney supporters have had their signs torn down, and a few "have had swastikas painted on them."
But the Republicans are not the only ones suffering at the hands of vandals.
Babbitt campaign communications director Carlos Vizcarra said that on Sunday, all of the signs posted out in front of the office had been slashed. "And we have had other signs that supporters have had stolen or torn up."
Vizcarra said it was hard to tell if the damage was politically motivated, but one Babbitt supporter told the campaign that his signs were destroyed but not the Bush-Cheney signs posted by his neighbor.
Officer David Holland, the responding officer, said that he logged several items into evidence for the investigation. Among those items were the cinder block, a "good" fingerprint card, signage stakes, beer bottles, a piece of paper with names on it, glass, a hubcap, and witness statements.
He also logged items of "anti-Bush literature," he said.
Among the statements on the literature was, "We can't get back the last four years. We can't lose the next four."
The case has been referred to the detective division for follow up to include contacting the names mentioned on the the piece of paper.
Supervisors with the patrol and detective divisions have not heard of any significant problems regarding the damaging or theft of campaign signs.
"We don't get that many reports," said Sgt. Gerry Blair of the police department. "Most of the time, people don't report it."
He added that it has been his experience that campaign sign damage or theft is considered a nuisance by residents, and it has become an expected occurrance.The department will receive sporadic reports during a campaign season, but not to the level mentioned by the political party headquarters staff in Flagstaff.
Felony criminal damage is another matter, Blair said. Those crimes, like what happened early this morning, seldom go unreported.
"This is a felony and will be treated as such, and if we figure out who did it, we'll pursue prosecution," Blair said.
Blair emphasized that residents who experience campaign sign damage or theft should call police, so investigators can begin discerning patterns in the crimes.
"We can't investigate crimes we don't know about," he said.
Reporter Seth Muller can be reached at 913-8607 or at smuller@azdailysun.com. Staff reporter Larry Hendricks contributed to this report.
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