Pipe bombs and sidearms by @BloggersRUs

Pipe bombs and sidearms

by Tom Sullivan

Pipe bombs and sidearms, real or fake, are now features of the 2018 midterm elections.

On a day the F.B.I. investigated seven suspected pipe bombs sent to six people the among the president's verbal targets, police arrested a man for threatening a Republican electioneer outside a polling station. Both remain developing stories.

As of this writing, the New York Times reports, "Some bomb technicians who studied photos of the device that circulated on social media suggested that the bomb sent to CNN had hallmarks of fake explosives — the kind more typically depicted on television and in movies, rather than devices capable of detonating."

Derek Partee, a Republican volunteer, Wednesday posted images on Facebook of three people he said issued threats and racial slurs as he stood outside a polling station in the Steele Creek community of Charlotte, NC. Partee is black. In one photo, a man is shown carrying a holstered pistol. Partee, a retired New York homicide detective, called local police. One man is in custody facing charges of ethnic intimidation and communicating threats. The other two had violated no laws.



News accounts report the sidearm was a BB gun. From the Charlotte Observer account:

In an interview with the (Raleigh) News & Observer Wednesday night, Partee said he arrived at the polling place around 2:30 p.m. when a fellow volunteer pointed out the three people in the parking lot who had been taking photos that day and previously. Partee, who is a retired homicide detective from New York, said he decided to take down the license plate number of their car — but before he could, the man with the apparent gun jumped out of the car and confronted him.

“He said something about being a Republican, I said I am a Republican, he said ‘Motherf***** you ain’t s***,’” Partee said.

“They didn’t care whether I was a Democrat or a Republican, they just cared that I was black.”