The New York City headquarters of a private club supporting the Republican party was vandalized in the early hours of Oct. 12.
As yet unidentified vandals threw a brick through two windows, glued the building’s locks, damaged an entry keypad, and scrawled anarchy symbols on the front doors.
The Metropolitan Republican Club is headquartered at East 83rd Street near Lexington Avenue, a normally genteel Upper East Side neighborhood.
“I heard breaking of the glass,” he said. “Then I saw two young men wearing sweatpants and sweat-hoods run away, toward Lexington Avenue. I called the police right away. I was appalled.”
When police officers arrived they found anarchy symbols spray-painted on the front doors, two broken windows, two bricks inside the building, glued locks, the damaged keypad, and a note apparently left by the vandals.
The Metropolitan Republican Club serves as headquarters for both the statewide New York Republican Party and the Manhattan Republican Party.
Terrorism
New York Republican Party leaders discussed the attack at a press conference on Oct. 12.“This is terrorism,” state Senate candidate Pete Holmberg stated, according to the New York Post. “The people in this district are civil. These people came from outside.”
Holmberg blamed the attack on remarks made three days earlier by former Democratic New York Senator Hilary Clinton.
“This is an outside threat, and they’ve been sort of validated by [Hillary] Clinton,” said Holmberg.
The Republican Party’s candidate for governor, Marc Molinaro, said in a statement, “This type of political violence and rank vandalism is unacceptable, and I call on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to condemn this attack immediately and call for calm on the political left.”
New York State Democratic Committee Executive Director Geoff Berman condemned the attack, and also complained that the attack had been linked to the Democratic Party.
“New York Democrats have zero tolerance for violence in our political system and condemn this latest act of vandalism. This type of divisiveness is repugnant to everything we believe as New Yorkers. That being said, Ed Cox and Marc Molinaro’s rhetoric on this is wildly inappropriate. We need less hate and division—not more,” patch.com reported.
Patch further reported that the vandals’ note called the Democratic Party “spineless partners-in-crime” of the Republican Party.
Note Suggests Motives
The note left at the vandalized building, which seems to have been written by the criminals, sheds light on possible motives for the attack.According to the New York Post, the note read, in part, “The Metropolitan Republican Club chose to invite a hipster-fascist clown to dance for them, content to revel in their treachery against humanity.”
The Metropolitan Republican Club had scheduled an appearance by Gavin McInnes, the leader of a group called the “Proud Boys.” The group has generated a good deal of controversy in its clashes with Antifa.
