Threatening political letters target homes in Clark County

KOIN:

A threatening letter started appearing in the mailboxes of a Vancouver neighborhood after tomatoes were thrown at a home with an 'Obama 2012' sign in the front yard.  Judi Pitre said she got home from a weekend out of town and noticed tomatoes had been thrown at her home. "It's gotta be because of the Obama sign," Pitre said she immediately thought. She didn't think much about it until her neighbors started getting letters in their mailboxes titled "Welcome Wagon" blaming President Obama, and Democratic Washington Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell for high gas prices. The letter said:"The price of gas at the Shell station on 4th Plain across the street from the Spot Bar & Grill is $4.09 per gallon. This means every time you fill up your tank you are spending at least $20.00 more than you should have to….It is because of this that some of us threw tomatoes on the roof of a house in the neighborhood  at 4:00 a.m. - a house that has an "Obama" sign in the yard." Pitre said she knows everyone doesn't agree with her political views. "I’m an American and I have the right to have my opinion just like everybody else has the right to their opinions, and I may not agree with you but I'm not gonna go around vandalizing your house or cars or personal belongings because of my personal beliefs," said Pitre.The letter goes on to ask supporters to leave their porch lights on in the hour before sunrise saying, "you will be contacted." Neighbors like Ted Marx, who also got a letter, said he feels the letter is threatening."I think it’s a little extremist.. vote the way I want you to vote or I'm gonna tomato your house seems a little ridiculous," said Marx, who chose to leave the letter tucked under the flag on his mailbox, not taking it off. Republican Jason Germany said there are extremists on both sides but this doesn't count as free speech, it's vandalism. "I'm still gonna vote republican," Germany said.  "There is no way I can vote for Barack Obama but this is stupid. This doesn’t help. This doesn’t further your cause. When you throw tomatoes on somebody's house you're an idiot." Bob Price, a regular at Spot's Bar & Grill, mentioned in the letter, said it's too coincidental the Clark County Democratic Headquarters is right across the street from the Shell gas station mentioned in the letter. "It's not beneath the dignity of democrats to use subterfuge for the sake of getting sympathetic votes," said Price. Political tension has been running high across Vancouver this year. The windows were smashed out at the Clark County Republican Headquarter in Hazel Dell early Friday morning. Volunteer Anna Miller said it cost the party about $2500 to repair the broken windows. Miller said in Clark County Republican signs are begin destroyed and vandalized 3 to 1 compared to democratic signs.  She says this year will go down in the history books as one of the worst for vandalism. "It's the worst I’ve seen in the 15 to 20 years I’ve been here volunteering," Miller said.New security cameras have been installed outside the Clark County Republican Headquarters in an effort to prevent further vandalism. Neighbors in Minnehaha have contacted the Clark County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) to complain about what many of them see as threatening letters. A spokesman for CCSO said there isn't much they can do about it right now, but anyone who receives a letter like this and feels offended or threatened should call to report it. !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

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