GOP office reopens after firebombing
Investigators work to piece together scene of the attack.
Investigators combed through shards of glass, looked for residue of flammable accel- erant and tried to narrow down the overnight hours when someone torched a local Republican Party office by throwing a flammable device through the window.
The mayor said he wasn’t aware of any surveillance footage from the immedi- ate vicinity, and the office sits where there wouldn’t normally be foot traffic late at night — in a decades-old retail complex that backs up to a wooded area and is set back from a main road.
A bottle filled with flam- mable liquid was thrown through the window of the Orange County Republican Party headquarters early Sunday, damaging the interior before burning out, according to authorities. Someone also spray-painted “Nazi Republicans leave town or else” on a nearby wall. The office was empty and no one was injured.
Local party officials reopened a makeshift oper- ation on folding tables outside the office Monday while uni- formed police looked on. Plain- clothes investigators looked for evidence at the scene as state, local and federal investigators divided up leads.
The graffiti and remnants of the fire were discovered Sunday morning by 68-year- old Bobbie Sparrow, whose Balloons Above Orange shop is next to the GOP headquar- ters. She came to feed stray cats before church when she noticed the graffiti.
“I saw the hate in it. And the only reason they used the side of my building, because it was a blank canvas for a message to the Republican Party people,” she said in an interview.
She said she isn’t aware of any surveillance cameras outside the buildings, and Hill- sborough Mayor Tom Stevens said he wasn’t aware of any in the immediate vicinity, either.
On Monday afternoon, police released a recording of Sparrow’s 911 call placed at 8:54 a.m. Sunday.
“I don’t see any flames, but it has smoked up outside the window and there is a strong smell of smoke,” she says on the tape. “They obviously threw something flaming through the window at the Republican Party, and I’m not sure what kind of damage is inside. I’m not about to go look.”
County GOP chairman Daniel Ashley arrived Sunday morning to find the area roped off by yellow police tape. He said he believes whoever’s responsible intended to burn down the building.
The violent act in the key battleground state has been condemned by public figures across the political spectrum.
A tweet from Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Sunday said the attack “is horrific and unacceptable. Very grateful that everyone is safe.” An hour later, Trump tweeted: “Animals representing Hillary Clinton and Dems in North Carolina just firebombed our office in Orange County because we are winning.”