Feds Investigating Attack on Republican Party of New Mexico’s Building as Arson
The fire destroyed the entryway and someone tagged the building with “ICE = KKK.”
The Republican Party of New Mexico’s building was blown up and tagged with “ICE = KKK” over the weekend.
The Albuquerque Fire Rescue and Bernalillo County Fire Rescue received a call about a “structure fire” before 6 a.m. on Sunday.
It took personnel five minutes to put out the fire, which destroyed the entryway and ruined the building with smoke damage.
From The Albuquerque Journal:
The Republican Party of New Mexico’s entryway was destroyed by what party chairwoman Amy Barela described as a “deliberate act of arson” in a news release Sunday morning.
It is unclear if there are any suspects.
“This horrific attack, fueled by hatred and intolerance, is a direct assault on our values, freedoms, and our right to political expression,” Barela said.
The Albuquerque Fire Rescue is conducting an “active arson investigation.” The FBI and ATF are also investigating.
Barela claimed the “investigators told her that a Molotov cocktail was used to start the fire.”
Barela added: “We are deeply relieved that no one was harmed in what could have been a tragic and deadly attack. Those who resort to violence undermine our state and nation must be held accountable, and our state leaders must reinforce through decisive action that these cowardly attacks will not be tolerated.”
The Democratic Party of New Mexico responded:
The Democratic Party of New Mexico condemns “any vandalism at the Republican Party of New Mexico headquarters as strongly as possible,” spokesperson Daniel Garcia said in a statement.
“We firmly maintain that this sort of act has absolutely no place in our democracy, and that peaceful discourse and organization are the only ways to approach political differences in our country,” Garcia said. “We hope whoever is responsible is found and held accountable.”
This is the third attack on the party in New Mexico since 2017:
In March 2019, the state GOP headquarters was hit by a vandal who spray-painted the word “traitors” on the building. In July 2017, two activists from a radical left group spray-painted an “A” on the headquarter’s sign.
In fact, authorities arrested a former aide to Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham when she served in Congress in 2020 in connection to the 2019 attack.
They later dropped those charges.
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Comments
This is more than arson, it is terrorism and should be addressed as such.
These idiots really ARE itching to start a civil war, aren’t they?
Spicy times are looming.
The NM Dimocrats can’t bring themselves to state that we are a constitutional republic, not a democracy. So says my ninth grade civics book. Maybe they missed the class.
.
If your ninth grade civics book said we are not a democracy, it was wrong. Our founders referred to our form of government as a democracy as often as they referred to it as a republic. They are not mutually exclusive terms.
Go ahead and show us where it says that in any of the founding documents.
Read the bloody link.
I read the link and they make some interesting observations, but I’m not convinced that the writings of one here or there make the case.
The article also isn’t balanced as it takes a position and doesn’t present the counter evidence, which is all of the mentions of republic. It cherry picked ones that support their bias towards using the democracy label and ignores the historical abuses of democracy (Hello Lenin anyone?)
For clarity alone, the two distinct words are more useful.
The author’s quote of the modern definition of republic perfectly encapsulates the US. There’s no need for the redundancy of “representative democracy,” which could get confused with direct democracy when only the word democracy is used.
Conservatives favor the current definition of republic while progressives favor direct democracy.
Only one of the two is used in our officially ratified founding documents and maybe this was a point of contention? Who knows? The fact that ratifiers used democracy in any form elsewhere but left it out of those documents seems even more relevant after reading their examples.
I’ll leave with this…you would be hard pressed to convince conservatives that the phrase “two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner” is warning about anything other than direct democracy. And I’m pretty sure even the most famous DOI abstainer (Ben Franklin) would be wary of it for that reason.
No, progressives favor a country ruled by unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats and judges. The elected officials are just theater.
If R’s do something, its Terrorism.
If D’s do the exact same thing, mere arson.
When’s the last time an R ever did anything like this? It may have happened but I can’t recall even once.
Timothy McVeigh was a registered republican for a time.
That’s true – R’s don’t commit actual Terror attacks like this.
Thousands have been convicted with terrorism charges nonetheless, virtually all for merely being present at a protest.
Arson…. but with a virtuous thought behind the act which makes everything okay.
Kind of like burning Joan of Arc at the stake….
It was a GOOD thing.
Just so I don’t get flamed myself, this is sarcasm, okay?)
I believe arson and bombing should always carry the same penalties as attempted murder, whether the building (or vehicle) was empty or not.
Clearly the utter disregard for human life by the perpetrator in those acts, and the significant risk of death by anyone unfortunate enough to get close to or caught up in the act merits a much higher penalty than one of destruction of property.
Particularly so when it’s political terrorism, as in this case.
Good for the NM d/prog party having enough sense to at least give lip service to the idea of denouncing the arson. The political violence mounted by leftists from antifa, occupy, BLM, idiot displays like CHAZ, pro Hamas terrorism rallies to aging boomer Karens attacking Tesla needs to be called out, denounced and prosecuted. The d/prog who choose to remain silent or make public statements taken by some as encouraging more aggression need to accept their responsibility and STFU when/if the center/right adopts the tactics of political violence that these d/prog are normalizing. No whining when/if they are taking it v giving it.
Leftist politicians are very upset when their brainwashed followers resort to violence against the people who their leaders refer to as destroyers of democracy.
with a maga agenda
these leftists scum might just find themselves in prison for no less than 5 years if/when Bondi gets a hold of them
I have zero faith in the FBI or ATF.
R protesters got “Terrorism” charges added for such things as shaking a chain link fence, and sentenced to 28 years in prison.
But when Democrats torch a Republican Party HQ, that’s merely arson.