A Tempe, Arizona Democratic field office is closing after being targeted by three shootings in just three weeks.
Tempe police shared that the the campaign office was shot at 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 unknown plates as the suspected vehicle in all three shootings. No injuries were reported in the shootings, as they all occurred after-hours.
Local party official Lauren Kuby said they've made the decision to shutter the office in the suburbs of Phoenix following the the latest shooting on October 6.
The office, located a handful of miles from Arizona State University, was a voter outreach and volunteer operation hub, Kuby told the New York Times. But while workers and volunteers at the site had to be moved to other offices, Kuby says they aren’t discouraged by the violence.
“We’re not giving up,” Kuby told the Times. “People are determined not to be stopped.”
The Tempe field office is in the heart of Maricopa County, the fourth-largest county in the U.S., whose purple voters helped deliver the state to Democrats in 2020. Officials in the county and the state 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 of 2022, the county’s Supervisor Bill Gates, a Republican, had to be moved to an “undisclosed location” amid false election fraud conspiracies.
