By Peter Marcus, DENVER DAILY NEWS
Apparently it’s the Republicans’ turn for some vandalism.
The Denver County Republican Party headquarters at 1000 North Speer Boulevard was vandalized twice over the weekend by “unknown assailants,” according to Ryan Call, chairman of the Denver County Republican Party.
The incidents come over a year after a transgender woman smashed 11 windows at the Colorado Democratic Party headquarters in Denver.
Call said on Saturday night vandals drove more than 17 holes into the stucco walls of his party’s Denver County headquarters, as well as through a campaign poster for Ronnie Nelson, Republican candidate for House District 5.
On Sunday night, vandals destroyed campaign signs for the following Republican candidates:
• Attorney General John Suthers;
• U.S. Senate challenger Ken Buck;
• Secretary of State challenger Scott Gessler; and
• Nelson.
Following the August 2009 vandalism incident involving the Democratic Party headquarters in Denver, Democrat leaders were quick to point fingers at critics of President Obama’s then-pending health care reform proposal. The suspect turned out to be Maurice Schwenkler, 24, a transgender woman with ties to liberal and anarchist groups once investigated by the FBI for potential domestic terrorism incidents.
Republicans yesterday took a more measured approach in commenting about the vandalism incidents at their county headquarters.
“We are not sure if this vandalism is politically motivated,” Call said in a statement. “But we would hope that those who do disagree with us are able to do so in a way that is not disagreeable. Our parties have different ideas about how best to fix this country, and that discourse is important, but it needs to be conducted civilly without resort to violence and vandalism.”
In the August 2009 incident involving the Democrats’ headquarters in Denver, Schwenkler pled guilty to criminal mischief as part of a plea agreement that spared her a felony conviction. She was sentenced to 11 months of unsupervised probation and ordered to pay $5,600 restitution.
A second suspect was never named in the 2009 incident. Schwenkler refused to name the second suspect.
