(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) North Carolina congressional candidate Pat Harrigan, a Republican seeking to represent the 14th district, nearly lost his two girls to an apparentely politically motivated shooting, the Daily Mail reported.
The bullets were fired into the home of Harrigan’s parents and landed a few feet away from his two daughters, aged 3 and 5. The gunman fired from woods behind the house.
The shooting happened on Oct. 18 in Hickory, North Carolina. The FBI opened an investigation. Since the shooting, Harrigan has had to wear bulletproof armor on the campaign trail.
His opponent, Democrat Jeff Jackson, a state senator, filmed an advertisement outside Harrigan’s out-of-district, lakeside home in which he criticizes him for owning a gun manufacturing business.
Jackson tied Harrigan to the Sandy Hook Shooting. He said Harrigan had “made a fortune” off mass shootings and now lives a luxurious life with that money.
Jackson released the ad the same day the gunman targeted his opponent’s parents home, which is near Harrigan’s home.
The attack was one of an escalating series of incidents that have seen Republicans targeted with violence, both threatened and actual, in the wake of President Joe Biden’s dangerous Red Rally speech where he called Republicans a violent threat to democracy and to the country.
In response to the attack on his family, Harrigan, a veteran, said “Death threats aren’t enough to knock this Green Beret off that mission.”
“Jeff Jackson’s brand of politics leads to runaway inflation, economic ruin, and rampant crime – including political violence. Voters literally cannot afford to have him in Congress,” Harrigan said in a statement.
Harrigan’s daughters have lived outside North Carolina during much of the campaign cycle.
“On September 28th, you and your team shot a television ad outside one of my homes in Hickory, North Carolina,” Harrigan wrote to the Democrat Jackson. “Aside from the plainly false information in the ad, you crossed a red line–but not before showing your true character to the people of the 14th District.”
An open letter to Jeff Jackson.#ncpol pic.twitter.com/wzoIKdFroq
— PatHarriganNC (@PatHarriganNC) October 26, 2022
After federal and local authorities had two weeks to investigate, neither have arrested a suspect.
