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11/12
AKE RONKONKOMA, N.Y. (AP) — A Long Island man has been arrested for making a death threat against a Republican congressman who voted for the $1 trillion infrastructure package, police said.
Kenneth Gasper, 64, was arrested Wednesday for a telephoned death threat against Rep. Andrew Garbarino, Nassau County police said in a news release.
Police said Gasper made the phone call Monday over a vote by Garbarino that Gasper “did not agree with.”
Gasper called Garbarino’s district office, cursed at the staff member who answered and called Garbarino a RINO, an insult that stands for “Republican in name only,” according to the criminal complaint. Gasper warned that if he saw Garbarino on the street he would kill him, the complaint says.
a man wearing a suit and tie smiling at the camera: Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.)© Provided by New York Daily News Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.)
Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.)
Gasper, of Lake Ronkonkoma, was arrested on a charge of aggravated second-degree harassment. It wasn’t clear whether he had an attorney who could comment on the charge. There was no answer at a phone listing for Gasper.
Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said his department has “zero tolerance for this type of behavior.”
“In the world that we’re living in today, the climate that is out there, these threats we take very seriously,” Ryder said at a news conference Friday.
Garbarino, who was elected in 2020 after longtime U.S. Rep. Peter King announced his retirement, was one of 13 Republicans who voted for the infrastructure package Nov. 5.
The 13 defectors have been attacked by fellow Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, over their vote. Republican leaders have been largely silent on the attacks.
While the infrastructure vote appears to have led some opponents of the legislation to threaten lawmakers, death threats against elected officials were already on the rise.
The chief of the U.S. Capitol Police, J. Thomas Manger, told The Associated Press in September that his department was seeing thousands of more threats against lawmakers than just a few years ago.
Manger predicted that authorities would respond to close to 9,000 threats against members of Congress in 2021.
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