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100 Union Thugs Terrorize Opponent of Therese
Murray in Plymouth In the following pictures, you can see the hostile crowd lining both sides of the street, and making obscene gestures at the camera man.
The next day, Tim Duncan issued the following press release: May 21, 2004 Dear Friends and Supporters: On Thursday night we saw first-hand how far the special interests in this state are willing to go to defend one of their own. It was a pathetic attempt to try and intimidate me, my wife and children and our supporters in this campaign. It didn't work. I am more committed than ever to stopping these Bulger leftovers and returning Massachusetts to the people. Our kick-off consisted of two separate events. First, we had an announcement at the PCIS School in Plymouth. This was a public event in a public venue and the press was invited. This was followed by a fundraiser at the Southers Marsh Golf Club a few miles away. This was a private event on private property. When my wife, children and I pulled up to the school there were 10 or 15 people carrying "Murray" signs on both sides of the school's entrance. Although I wondered why Terry Murray felt it necessary to interfere with my event, her people were orderly at the school and certainly had a right to be on public property. After the press announcement, we drove to the Southers Marsh Golf Club which is located off Federal Furnace Road in Plymouth. As we approached the club, there were dozens of trucks and cars parked on both sides of the narrow two-lane road making it difficult and dangerous for cars traveling in both directions. Cars traveling 30-40 MPH were forced to slow down quickly and travel partly in the oncoming lane of traffic to avoid the cars parked partially on the side of the road and partially blocking the traffic lane. We attempted to turn left into the club's drive but there was a crowd of 75-100 people holding Murray signs blocking the drive so that we were forced to stop the car in the middle of Federal Furnace Road with our car facing sideways into oncoming traffic. My wife and two children were in the car with me and I began to be concerned for their safety at this point. The crowd of people opened up enough so I could pull the car off the road and into the club's driveway. Someone shouted "there he is" and people surrounded my car so that we could not move forward or backward without injuring someone. People began rocking the car, spitting on the windshield and shouting profanities at me, my wife and my children. Several in the crowd had copies of a Building Permit I had filed for remodeling my house in Falmouth in 2002.The building permit had our home address and people pressed the paper against the glass in front of my wife and children and shouted "We know where you live". After a minute or so, I inched the car forward and the crowd began to part to let us through. At the last moment, someone kicked the side of the car and hit the side mirror knocking it in. All of this happened while my 9 year-old son and 15 year-old daughter sat in the back seat of the car. Others who were attending the event were also harassed and threatened as they tried to enter the area. The Plymouth Police were called and when they arrived they opened the drive so that cars and people could enter and leave the event safely. This required four or five Plymouth police officers to spend several hours that evening trying to maintain order. These pictures were taken after the police arrived so you can imagine what it was like before their arrival on the scene. My parents used to take me on civil rights marches when I was young. I remember the thugs driving by the marches with guns and baseball bats in the racks on their pickup trucks shouting and threatening the crowd. These are different thugs at a different time but their purpose was the same: intimidation. There was no other reason for these people to be where they were and doing what they were doing other than to try and intimidate me and my family in order to get me out of the race against Terry Murray. It didn't work. It is disgusting and appalling that this would happen in Massachusetts in 2004. This is why we need to continue to support Governor Romney's efforts to reform our state government and get these Bulger leftovers out of office and return our state government to the people of Massachusetts. I very much appreciate all of your support but we are all going to have to work hard to make the changes that need to be made. We are going to be successful on November 2nd because we have so many people that are willing to work to change this state through positive means - not by threats, intimidation and coercion!
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