A Democratic field office in Tempe, Arizona, is being closed after being targeted by three shootings in just three weeks.
Tempe police said the campaign office had been shot once with a BB gun and twice with a firearm in recent days. No suspects have been identified, but police released a photo of a silver Toyota Highlander with an unknown license plate as the suspect vehicle in all three shootings. No injuries were reported in the shootings as they all occurred outside business hours.
Local party official Lauren Kuby said they made the decision to close the office in suburban Phoenix after the latest shooting on Oct. 6.
The office, located a few miles from Arizona State University, was a hub for voter and volunteer activities, Kuby told the New York Times. But while workers and volunteers at the site have had to be moved to other offices, Kuby says they are not discouraged by the violence.
“We are not giving up,” Kuby told the Times. “People are determined not to be held back.”
The Tempe field office is in the heart of Maricopa County, the fourth-largest county in the U.S., where purple voters helped deliver the state to Democrats in 2020. County and state officials have been the target of numerous violent threats related to election conspiracy theories spread by former President Donald Trump and Senate candidate Kari Lake.
In November 2022, county supervisor Bill Gates, a Republican, had to be moved to an “undisclosed location” amid false conspiracies about election fraud.
