Over the weekend, the offices of the Cleveland County Democratic Party in Norman, Oklahoma, were vandalized. From what we can best determine, the first part of the incident took place at about 2am on Friday night/Saturday morning. Small boulders were thrown through the front, shattering the front windows and leaving the office wide open and unsecured:
The second part of the incident, though, happened after the police initially left the scene. While county party officers were assessing the damage, vandals struck AGAIN, throwing more rocks and causing the front windows to completely shatter, as seen in the picture above.
More details below the fold....
At this point, with no good leads and very little information about what happened, we can only speculate as to the motives of anyone who would do this.
However, I have to say that every Democrat in Oklahoma is taking this attack very seriously. Any case of vandalism like this would be deeply troubling, but two details to this story are particularly disturbing:
One, the rocks used were clearly not just picked up off the street and thrown on a whim. These were of a variety of shapes and sizes, and as far as our county officers can ascertain, did not come from anywhere in the immediate area of their downtown office location.
Two, the fact that this incident had two parts - and one part came while people were inside. Again, we can only speculate right now whether there were two sets of vandals or one that returned to the scene to do more damage. And we can be very thankful that no one was hurt in this incident.
But for me, as an employee of our state Democratic Party, very little about this weekend's incident comforts me - especially considering there have been previous incidents of vandalism and violence at Democratic Party headquarters, including in Colorado, in Arkansas, and in New Hampshire.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to weave together a conspiracy. But what I am trying to wrap my head around is the fact that I'm at our state party headquarters every day, working within our incredibly rich and historic political system in order to spread hope, promote equality and justice, and make our state a better place. And while I'm doing that, I know there are hundreds of people around me who see our work and want only to throw back hatred - in the form of rude phone calls, ruder emails, or rocks.
On a very basic and human level, I just don't understand that.
I talked to our Cleveland County Chair today and asked her if there was anything we could do as the state party. She said - and half kidding at best - we could raise enough money to buy them an alarm system and better security.
I would love to tell her we could give her that, but if that's going to happen, we need help. So if you make a donation to the Oklahoma Democratic Party by clicking here, we'll split what we raise with the Cleveland County Party to help them get back to work. Or, you can donate directly to them - their address is on their website.
If we're going to work to elect Democrats anywhere, we have to be committed to working for Democrats everywhere. And in this little corner of the nation, that's what we're trying to do. No matter what they throw at us next.
- Karina Henderson
Communications & New Media Director, Oklahoma Democratic Party