Protestors Ransack Bush/Cheney Headquarters In Orlando
2 People Receive Minor Injuries During Protest
POSTED: 6:05 pm EDT October 5, 2004
UPDATED: 11:14 pm EDT October 5, 2004
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A group of protestors stormed and then ransacked a Bush-Cheney headquarters building in Orlando, Fla., Tuesday, according to Local 6 News.
Protestors Storm, Ransack Bush-Cheney Headquarters In Orlando
Local 6 News reported that several people from the group of 100 Orlando protestors face possible assault charges after the group forced their way inside the Republican headquarters office.
While in the building, some of the protestors drew horns and a mustache on a poster of President George W. Bush and poured piles of letters in the office, according to the report.
"We told them to leave, they broke the law," Republican headquarters volunteer Mike Broom said.
Two protestors received minor injuries when the crowd stormed the building, including a Republican volunteer.
One of the protestors said she wanted to send a message.
"We want to send a clear message to Bush, we want him to take his hands off our overtime pay," protestor Esmeralda Heuilar said.
Local 6 News learned that most of the protestors were from the AFL-CIO and were taking part in one of 20 other coordinated protests around the country.
A spokesperson with the AFL-CIO told Local 6 News that the Orlando protest did not go as planned.
A protest similar to Orlando's demonstration was held at a Bush-Cheney office in Miami at the same approximate time, Local 6 News reported.
New photos: Shots fired into Knox Bush/Cheney headquarters
An unknown suspect fired multiple shots into the Bearden office of the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign Tuesday morning.
The headquarters are located at 4618 Kingston Pike, between Nouveau Classics and Lenny's submarine sandwich shop in the same shopping plaza as Long's Drugstore.
According to Knoxville Police Department (KPD) officers on the scene Tuesday, it is believed that the two separate shots were fired from a car sometime between 6:30 am and 7:15 am.
One shot shattered the glass in the front door and the other cracked the glass in another of the front doors.
Bush-Cheney volunteer campaign coordinator Suzanne Dewar says she originally planned to be in the office early Tuesday morning.
"If I had gotten here a couple hours earlier, I'd have been inside," Dewar explains. "And we don't turn the lights on until we open, so they wouldn't have know someone was inside."
There were no witnesses to the shooting. A customer at a nearby dry cleaning store noticed shattered glass on the sidewalk in front of the headquarters and informed an employee in the cleaner's, who then called police.
Volunteers and staffers at the campaign office say they have no clues as to who might have committed the crime. However, they add that the shooting makes them even more enthusiastic about working for their candidates.
"If anything, they've energized us," Dewar says. "Thank you. Not thank you for shooting at us, but, nothing's gonna slow us down."
Dewar says she can't imagine why someone would fire shots into an office where people could have been injured or killed.
"I don't even know what to say to the person that did this," Dewar says. "...Get a life. This is ridiculous."
Bush/Cheney volunteer Jo Catlett says the incident hasn't fazed her.
"I just don't feel like I have to be nervous," says Catlett. "I mean, I just believe in God and that He'll take care of me, so I don't worry about that."
In an unexpected twist, a bank directly across the street from the headquarters was robbed as KPD officers were busy investigating at the scene of the shooting.
Swastika Burned Into Grass On Bush-Cheney Supporter's Lawn
Homeowner: 'My Signs Are Going Right Back In The Yard'
POSTED: 11:57 am CDT October 1, 2004
UPDATED: 12:31 pm CDT October 1, 2004
MADISON, Wis. -- Madison homeowners are livid after vandals defaced their homes.
Someone burned an 8-foot-by-8-foot Nazi swastika on a home's lawn near where Bush-Cheney signs were posted. The vandals used grass killer to spray the symbol.
Several nearby homes were vandalized -- all were within a two-block radius on the West Side, near Ice Age Trail, News 3 reported.
State Republican Party officials claim it's the latest in a series of desperate acts by Democrats.
Homeowners are angry, but resolute in what they plan to do next.
"I just cannot believe that someone would take the liberty to do this," said homeowner Rob Schaeffer. "We're appalled that someone would choose to destroy our property because they don't believe in our political views. My signs are going right back in the yard. This is my property. We live here. We have rights."
Police are investigating the criminal damage and told the homeowner it will be investigated as a hate crime, which carries stiffer penalties.
I knew the closer we got to Nov. 2, the more likely that stuff like this would happen and I have been proven correct. What's scary is that we still have four weeks to go; someone could very well up the ante in that timespan...
Elfdart forgot to take off his tinfoil Conspiracy Detector™ hat and is still seeing the Illuminati mind control rays as a Republican conspiracy.
Or to be more serious, he's regurgitating some bullshit from the DU boards. How about it, Elfdart, has the IUPAT union announced that the guy really wasn't one of their members yet?
When they do, I'll concede you're right.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."- General Sir Charles Napier
Maybe I'm being overly cynical, but I remember the "Clinton's staff trashed the whitehouse as they left....... well, no they really didn't we lied" bit. So I'm waiting to see hard proof that this actually was a bunch of liberal extremists.
بيرني كان سيفوز
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Nuclear Navy Warwolf
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in omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro
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ipsa scientia potestas est
Protest Turns Ugly At Orlando Office For Bush-Cheney Campaign
POSTED: 6:34 am EDT October 6, 2004
UPDATED: 6:38 am EDT October 6, 2004
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Bush-Cheney campaign workers in three Florida cities said they were intimidated by chanting labor union activists who showed up unwelcomed in their offices on Tuesday, protesting changes pushed by the Bush administration on overtime pay.
Dozens of union activists showed up at the Bush-Cheney campaign offices in Miami, Orlando and Tampa to deliver postcards from people opposed to the Bush administration regulations that they claim would threaten the overtime payments of chefs, nurses, police officers, journalists, athletic trainers, lower-level computer employees.
Similar protests organized by labor unions occurred in other cities around the nation.
A criminal complaint was filed with the Orlando Police Department after Rhyan Metzler, a field director for the Republican Party of Florida in Orlando, said his wrist was sprained while he was trying to stop protesters from getting through the office door. About 50 of the 120 protesters in Orlando got into the office.
The head of another campaign worker was slammed against the glass door, Metzler said.
"I locked the door to keep them from coming in. I asked them to leave," Metzler said. "I told them they were trespassing, that I had called the police and that if they didn't leave I would have them prosecuted."
Police officers were considering filing two misdemeanor battery charges against a protester, said Sgt. Brian Gilliam, a spokesman for the Orlando Police Department.
Another protester apparently used a magic marker to draw devil horns on a poster of President Bush but no vandalism charge was going to be filed because officers couldn't identify the protester, Gilliam said.
Debra Booth, president of the Central Florida AFL-CIO, described the protest as "peaceful" and said the hand of one of the protesters was cut because of scuffling at the door.
"It was a peaceful action and (Republicans) turned it into something raucous for publicity," Booth said.
In Miami, more than 100 union protesters stormed the Bush-Cheney campaign office and pushed volunteers inside, police said. No one was arrested and most of the protesters had left by the time police arrived, said Miami police spokesman Delrish Moss.
Union workers tried to leave hundreds of post cards for President Bush and demanded a meeting with Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.
Lenny Alvicar, spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Miami, said about 20 volunteers, including elderly people working phone banks, were at the headquarters when the union workers came inside. The protesters chanted, tried to put stickers on the walls and removed campaign signs. Other protesters blocked the street outside, he said.
"It was pushing, it was intimidation," Alvicar said. "In some cases just more than disruptive but in fact violently intimidating volunteers."
Countered South Florida AFL-CIO president Fred Frost: "It was as civil as it gets."
In Tampa, about three dozen protesters crowded into the second-floor office of the local Bush-Cheney headquarters where three elderly volunteers, two interns and a campaign staffer were working at the time, said Wes Maddox, a Bush-Cheney volunteer.
"It shook them up," Maddox said.
Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Stanley Hauerwas wrote:[W]hy is it that no one is angry at the inequality of income in this country? I mean, the inequality of income is unbelievable. Unbelievable. Why isn’t that ever an issue of politics? Because you don’t live in a democracy. You live in a plutocracy. Money rules.
Perhaps they should throw the entire riot in jail for a day, then they will have a criminal record and won't be allowed to vote...
I thought Roman candles meant they were imported. - Kelly Bundy
12 yards long, two lanes wide it's 65 tons of American pride, Canyonero! - Simpsons
Support the KKK environmental program - keep the Arctic white!
It's been posted in the funny pic thread already...
"preemptive killing of cops might not be such a bad idea from a personal saftey[sic] standpoint..." --Keevan Colton
"There's a word for bias you can't see: Yours." -- William Saletan
Or to be more serious, he's regurgitating some bullshit from the DU boards. How about it, Elfdart, has the IUPAT union announced that the guy really wasn't one of their members yet?
Jesus Christ, do none of the conservatives here have a sense of humor?
The End of Suburbia
"If more cars are inevitable, must there not be roads for them to run on?"
-Robert Moses
"The Wire" is the best show in the history of television. Watch it today.
Or to be more serious, he's regurgitating some bullshit from the DU boards. How about it, Elfdart, has the IUPAT union announced that the guy really wasn't one of their members yet?
Jesus Christ, do none of the conservatives here have a sense of humor?
With Elfdart and that (recently removed) sig of his, you never can really tell if he's being serious, flamebaiting, or just making a lame-ass joke.
Or to be more serious, he's regurgitating some bullshit from the DU boards. How about it, Elfdart, has the IUPAT union announced that the guy really wasn't one of their members yet?
Jesus Christ, do none of the conservatives here have a sense of humor?
With Elfdart and that (recently removed) sig of his, you never can really tell if he's being serious, flamebaiting, or just making a lame-ass joke.
I see the attack on our local Bush Cheney HQ was pretty widely publicized. In all honesty, I hadn't realized it had gotten press outside of Tennessee.
It's this sort of thing that makes the left look incredibly tasteless. That and the putting up flyers calling Republicans Nazis, and writers in the school paper calling Republicans racist pigs, and the vandalization of vehicles with Bush stickers on them, etc., etc., etc.....
Explain, please.
