Terror struck the North Carolina home of Republican congressional candidate Pat Harrigan, whose house was shot at by an unknown shooter (or shooters) in the middle of the night while Harrigan’s family, which includes his two children, were inside the house.
The shooting, which occurred on Oct. 18 but has only recently been discussed openly by the family and reported on by the press, luckily resulted in no injuries. The family is currently safe, but extremely stressed especially as the election is only days away.
The incident has new scrutiny for Harrigan’s Democratic opponent, state senator Jeff Jackson, who filmed an attack ad which featured one of Harrigan’s homes in the footage. Harrigan appeared on Fox News to call on his opponent to make a statement denouncing political violence, who thankfully released a statement doing so.
“We fully support law enforcement as they investigate this incident and believe any wrongdoing should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said Tommy Cromie, a campaign spokesperson for Jackson in a statement to the press.
“We at Team Jackson pulled our ad in an abundance of caution and concern, but to be clear, the home involved in the incident has never been featured in any of our advertising.”
Jeff Jackson’s silence on the results of his vile and dishonest campaign is deafening but not surprising. I call on him to condemn the violence & apologize for his lies, but he won’t. If he did, then he’d have to start talking about inflation, a broken economy, & rampant crime. pic.twitter.com/5pr1wqlGYF
— PatHarriganNC (@PatHarriganNC) November 4, 2022
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Silence From the White House and Mainstream Media
While the Harrigan’s Democratic opponent at least put out a statement decrying the shooting, there has been no word from President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris denouncing the act of political violence against the candidate and his family as of publication.
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“@POTUS has not condemned the attack on GOP congressional candidate Pat Harrigan,” tweeted the popular conservative Twitter account Libs of TikTok, “after a gunman opened fire into his family’s home nearly killing his children.” (It’s not clear if anyone was nearly killed, but rounds fired into a home could obviously very easily kill someone.)
.@POTUS has not condemned the attack on GOP congressional candidate Pat Harrigan, after a gunman opened fire into his family’s home nearly killing his children. https://t.co/LTiruVXWVS
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) November 4, 2022
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel posted to her twitter account as well to bring attention to the situation, which she also pointed out had not received nearly as much attention as it deserves.
“@PatHarriganNC wears a bulletproof vest to events, received death threats, and now his home was shot at after his opponent filmed an ad outside his home,” tweeted McDaniel.
“A bullet landed feet away from his sleeping kids. Why is the media barely covering this?”
.@PatHarriganNC wears a bulletproof vest to events, received death threats, and now his home was shot at after his opponent filmed an ad outside his home.
A bullet landed feet away from his sleeping kids. Why is the media barely covering this?https://t.co/6cDdQi2z5Y
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) November 4, 2022
For context, a bullet found by police during their investigation of the home did break the laundry room window, a floor below where the children were sleeping at the time. The Daily Mail did confirm that out of an abundance of caution, Harrigan’s children have been relocated to an undisclosed location out-of-state for their safety while the investigation continues.
Conservative online figure and defense attorney Marina Medvin did some quick digging of her own to see whether or not the usual mainstream media outlets had covered this story or if they were going to largely ignore it. Being silent on this specific story would not be a surprise to many, especially since liberal outlets were mum regarding the murder of a Republican teenager in September by a man who claimed the teenager was a “Republican extremist.”
“US House Republican candidate Pat Harrigan’s home was shot, his little girls were inside not far from the bullets, and there’s no MSM coverage of the story,” Medvin tweeted. “All local. No CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc– none of the big networks have covered it.”
US House Republican candidate Pat Harrigan’s home was shot, his little girls were inside not far from the bullets, and there’s no MSM coverage of the story. All local. No CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc— none of the big networks have covered it.
Google News search results: pic.twitter.com/z4IihTaezt
— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) November 4, 2022
RELATED: Washington Post Links 2010 Campaign Ad Against Nancy Pelosi to Assault on Her Husband
Does Their Rhetoric Mean Nothing?
While President Trump and Republicans were blamed for everything from the Charlottesville riot to mass shootings when the GOP was in power, Democrats seem to be able to shrug off instances where their rhetoric has directly led to violence and chaos, such as the Antifa and BLM riots which caused billions in damage alone during the pandemic and lockdown era of 2020.
Making a last minute attempt to drive Democrats to the polls, President Biden for the second time this year held another solo, eerie speech targeting Trump supporters and conservatives as an existential threat to our nation.
Biden repeatedly called his opposition “MAGA Republicans,” and even going as far as to call them enemies of the state who are trying to “promote authoritarian leaders” and stoking “the flames of political violence that are a threat to our personal rights, to the pursuit of justice to the rule of law, to the very soul of this country.”
Democracy is on the ballot. pic.twitter.com/f327esxgnZ
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 3, 2022
Ironically, there has been one global figure traveling the country asking people turn their rhetoric down a notch fearing that these types of divisive speeches could lead to the exact same type of situation that Harrigan found himself in– former President Barack Obama.
During a recent campaign speech for Democratic candidates in Arizona, Obama said, “One thing is clear, and that is this increasing habit of demonizing political opponents, of just yelling and thinking not just that I disagree with someone, but that they’re evil and wrong.”
“That creates a dangerous climate,” Obama continued. “And when we have politicians and elected officials in leadership positions who continue to promote over-the-top rhetoric or make light of it, more people are going to get hurt.”
Whether the Democrats in attendance and those who saw the speech later listened to that and thought “could he be talking about us?” is still to be determined.
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