Wayne County GOP HQ break-in
By Steve Herring
Published in News on December 30, 2016 10:15 AM
Full SizeA mural at the Wayne County Republican Party headquarters on 147 S. Center St. has been vandalized.
Nothing appears to have been taken even though TVs and computers were in plain view, Wayne County GOP Chairman Brent Heath said.
It appears someone came up the outside stairs at the back of the building and gained entry by kicking in a door, he said.
"They vandalized the mural that we have on the wall," Heath said. "They wrote some obscenities up there and defaced the picture of President Reagan."
Heath said the break-in and vandalism, which have been reported to Goldsboro police, appear to have happened between noon Wednesday and Thursday morning.
"It wasn't like that when we left at 12 o'clock yesterday (Wednesday)," Heath said. "I wasn't there, but we had somebody there until 12 o'clock yesterday and he said he didn't see anything. When we showed up about 1 o'clock today (Thursday) we found it in that condition. We had a meeting there with some people.
"When we first got there I couldn't find where they had gained access to the building," Heath said. "Everything was in place. So I decided to go upstairs and found they kicked the door in upstairs. Of course, everything upstairs is just kind of a vacant room anyway. We store stuff up there basically. But there was no vandalism that I notice upstairs, and I looked around pretty good."
Heath said he is in the process of trying to determine the cost to repair the damage.
"They ruined the door jam upstairs, which is probably $300 or $400 there," he said. "I have no idea about the mural. I am guessing maybe $300 or $400, but I don't know. Probably less than a thousand dollars in damage."
Heath said he had did not find any damage other than the mural. He said he already has contacted someone to look at repairing the mural.
"Nothing taken that I can find," he said. "I looked through the drawers. Of course six months from now we may be looking for something and think, 'I wonder if it was stolen when they broke in?' All of the TVs were still in place. Anything that you would think people were breaking in to get -- the computers, the TVs. I mean nothing was out of place."
It appears the vandals used a marker of some type, he said.
The Republican was marked out in the logo "Wayne County Republican Party" and replaced with a misspelled derogatory word for a homosexual.
What appear to be teardrops were painted under Reagan's right eye and what could be an upside-down cross between his eyes. There is a drawing of some sort on his right cheek and next to his left eye.
A small "W" was marked next to the G in GOP.
Also written on the wall was an expletive decrying Trump and "da-opps."
Police estimated damagesat $100 to the door frame and $250 to the wall.
This story is an updated version of a previous report filed Thursday, Dec. 29.