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Matthew Harp appealed for a calmer tone in the mayoral campaign after discovering someone had shot out the front door to his Whalley Avenue real-estate office.
Candidate Kermit Carolina responded by condemning violence — and condemning Harp for “initimating” that he’s “complicit.”
Harp, the son of front-running Democratic mayoral candidate Toni Harp, runs Renaissance Management, a real-estate company at 300 Whalley Ave. Toni Harp’s opponents and critics have been repeatedly criticizing the company during the campaign for conditions at some of its buildings and for a tax debt incurred by Harp’s late husband.
Someone shot out the door overnight, Matthew Harp said Friday morning.
“There should be a call on all candidates to tone down their rhetoric” and “for nonviolence instead,” Matthew Harp said Friday morning.
There is no evidence that the shooting-out of the door was related to the campaign. But Harp noted that it occurred hours after a campaign appearance in town on Toni Harp’s behalf by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, during which a Harp opponent confronted the governor about Harp’s family’s tax debt. And that someone broke two windows to Toni Harp’s campaign office several blocks west on Whalley last month.
Comment threads have been filled in recent weeks with personal invective against Harp. One example: The Hartford Courant Thursday published the following comment on its website posted to a story about how another mayoral candidate was blasting Malloy for endorsing Harp given her late husband’s and her son’s business record: “I think Dan and Toni are going to one of her slumlord tenements and taking a piss in the hallway to celebrate the rise of the Carpetbagging Black politician in CT. When done, they will blame the incident on the racist police for not patrolling the hallways and providing free security. Don’t need the KKK around when Toni’s bac in town!”
“I’m glad that everyone is safe. There is certainly too much crime in New Haven, which affects all of our neighborhoods,” Fernandez said Friday when asked about the incident.
Harp, Fernandez, Carolina and Justin Elicker are competing in a Sept. 10 Democratic mayoral primary.
Carolina issued a statement Friday afternoon condemning both the violence and the remarks coming from the Harp camp.
Carolina called on the cops “to vigorously investigate this matter and find the culprit or culprits responsible. There is no place for violence in this campaign or in this city.”
“While we should all stand united in our abhorrence of any type of violence,” Carolina is quoted saying in the statement, “let me make one [thing] crystal clear: any attempts to infer, insinuate, suggest or imply that our campaign played any role in either of the acts of violence is as despicable as the acts of violence themselves. We certainly consider any references regarding even the slightest possibility of our involvement to be slanderous.
“For example, Matthew Harp is quoted in the New Haven Independent as ‘appealing for a calmer tone’ by using ‘non-violence instead.’ He also sought to connect the endorsement of Governor Malloy to the shot-out window. Clearly, if Matthew Harp is calling for a ‘nonviolent’ tone ‘instead,’ he is intimating that there is currently a violent tone. Our campaign has never even come close to having a violent tone. It is, however, important to note here that this is not the first time the Harp campaign confused holding Toni Harp accountable with what could be wanton acts of vandalism. The most pertinent rhetorical question for our campaign to raise is: how would our campaign benefit at all from being involved in these acts?
“Given that this is the second time that the Harp family has had their property damaged and that on each occasion someone directly involved in her campaign has raised the specter that we were somehow complicit in such detestable behavior, we are rightly upset. We should expect a more measured and honest approach from someone who has attempted feverishly to position herself as the one with experience.”
Toni Harp issued a statement mid-Friday. “As a mother, I am obviously worried about the safety of my son. No one should have to be subjected to such violence,” the statement quoting her as saying. “As a candidate for mayor, this just further demonstrates the need for a comprehensive public safety policy that includes community policing. It also shows that the post-Newtown gun control bill that we passed in the state legislature was necessary and we believe once it has time to work, incidents like these can be avoided.”