Oct 9, 2009 7:14 pm US/Eastern
DeFede: Candidate's "Sick Joke" Draws Fire
WESTON (CBS4) ―
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On Tuesday, the Southeast Broward Republican Club held their monthly meeting at a local gun range. The Republicans had a grand time firing off handguns and assault rifles at myriad targets.
CBS News
On Tuesday, the Southeast Broward Republican Club held their monthly meeting at a local gun range. The Republicans had a grand old time firing off handguns and assault rifles at myriad targets including one terrorist-like figure in Arab garb.
But the highlight of the night's event was when Robert Lowry, a Republican candidate for Congress, opened fire on a target with the initials DWS scribbled next to the target's head.
DWS stood for his opponent in the Congressional race – U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
A spokesman for Lowry tried to downplay the incident describing it only as a "sick joke."
But news of the incident made headlines on websites across the country and led Democratic Party officials at both the local and national level to condemn Lowry's sense of humor.
"It would be bad enough if it was an isolated incident but its not, it's a pattern that is emerging from the national level to the state and local level and it's a pattern of inciting violence," said State Senator Nan Rich. "This is just rhetoric that goes way beyond civil discourse that we need to get back to in this country."
Friday afternoon Wasserman-Schultz issued a statement: "There is nothing light or funny about pretending to shoot someone. At a time in our country when people are bringing guns to Town Hall Meetings and a preacher is calling for the death of our President, I find this type of action serious and disturbing. Tonight I am going to have to talk to my young children about why someone is pretending to shoot their mother."
Lowry refused to speak to reporters Friday.
CBS4 News tried tracking him down at his campaign headquarters but it turned out his campaign headquarters is nothing more than a PO Box here at Mail Boxes Etc. in Hallandale Beach.
Late Friday, Lowry issued a rather strange explanation for the incident. He said no one from his campaign scrawled the letters on the target, but he decided to fire at the DWS target anyway because he would have had to pay for a new target.
According to a clerk at the gun range, targets cost $1.
Lowry said "not exchanging the target in question was… a gross mistake."
The Lowry campaign went on to say: "For the record, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a fine lady and we wish her and her family well."
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