Sarasota County GOP office vandalized in late May
The Republican Party of Sarasota County headquarters was vandalized in late May, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
The building’s exterior was spray-painted with the phrase “Property of NRA” and the word “guns” inside a heart shape, according to a Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office report.
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On May 31, an employee at Elite Auto Repair Shop, which is in the same building as the Republican Party's office, informed the party’s acting chairman, Jack Brill, that he had found black graffiti on two walls of the building.
Brill then told the Sheriff’s Office of the incident. He provided the office with camera footage, but the suspect was out of view in the video.
However, the Elite Auto Repair Shop employee also provided video footage, which shows a person wearing a light-colored hoodie, dark cargo shorts, black framed glasses and a dark-colored hat graffitiing the building at around 12:20 a.m. on May 30, the report says. The employee said, though, that the time the video footage displayed is slightly off.
The vandalism occurred less than a week after a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were killed.
Anne Snabes covers city and county government for the Herald-Tribune. You can contact her at asnabes@gannett.com and follow her on Twitter at @a_snabes.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Sarasota County GOP headquarters vandalized with graffiti
