LAKE RONKONKOMA, New York, U.S. (AP) – A man from Long Island, New York, was arrested for threatening to kill a Republican representative who voted in favor of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill, reported the police you come.
The $ 1 trillion project had majority support from Democrats and a few Republicans.
Kenneth Gasper, 64, was arrested Wednesday for making a telephone threat against Rep. Andrew Garbarino, Nassau County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
Police said Gasper made the phone call Monday on a Garbarino vote that Gasper “disagreed with.”
Gasper called Garbarino’s district office, cursed the staff member who answered the phone, and said Garbarino was a Republican in name only, according to the complaint. Gasper said that if he saw Garbarino on the street he would kill him, he added.
Gasper, a Lake Ronkonkoma resident, was arrested on one count of aggravated harassment. It was unclear if he had an attorney representing him. No one answered the phone listed under his name.
Garbarino, elected in 2020 after the retirement of veteran Republican congressman Peter King, was one of just 13 Republicans who voted for the infrastructure package on November 5.
All 13 have come under fire from their co-religionists, including former President Donald Trump, for voting with Democrats. Party leaders have said nothing about the attacks.
Garbarino told the New York Post that the “misinformation” spread by his lower house colleagues, as well as conservative commentators, has endangered the safety of congressmen.
“There are members of Congress who are using disinformation to raise funds and they are attacking us and that is causing us to receive death threats,” he said.
Although the vote on the infrastructure package appears to have prompted some opponents to threaten lawmakers, death threats against elected officials were already increasing.
Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger told The Associated Press in September that he was seeing thousands more threats against lawmakers than just a few years ago.
Manger predicted that by all of 2021 the authorities will have responded to about 9,000 threats against congressmen.
Police were planning a press conference later on Gasper’s arrest.