GOP office opens after firebombing

Associated Press

HILLSBOROUGH, N.C.

Investigators combed through shards of glass, looked for residue of flammable accelerant and tried to narrow down the overnight hours when someone torched a Republican Party office by throwing a flammable device through the window.

The mayor said he wasn’t aware of any surveillance footage from the immediate vicinity, and the office sits where there wouldn’t normally be foot traffic late at night – in a decades-old retail complex that backs up to a wooded area and is set back from a main road.

A bottle filled with flammable liquid was thrown through the window of the Orange County Republican Party headquarters early Sunday, damaging the interior before burning out, according to authorities. Someone also spray-painted “Nazi Republicans leave town or else” on a nearby wall. The office was empty and no one was injured.

Party officials reopened a makeshift operation on folding tables outside the office Monday while uniformed police looked on. Plainclothes investigators looked for evidence at the scene as state, local and federal investigators divided up leads.