‘Outrageous’: Bristol County Sheriff condemns violence in DC

Updated
Jan 7, 2021

This story was updated to include comments from Massachusetts Trump campaign reelection Vice Chair Brock Cordeiro and to update the number of people who died due to the incident.

Leaders from President Trump’s reelection campaign in Massachusetts — including Honorary Chair and Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson — spoke out against the violent insurrection in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6.

Hodgson took to Twitter last night to denounce the riots, in which a mob of Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol building while lawmakers were certifying the 2020 election results.

The insurrection took place following a speech by the outgoing president in front of the White House earlier on Wednesday.

Five people — including a Capitol Police officer — died and more than a dozen police officers were injured after the mob broke into the building, driving legislators into hiding and delaying the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.

Hodgson — a vocal Trump supporter who once reported his own Dartmouth church to the White House for giving out pamphlets on immigrants’ rights — called the mob’s actions “outrageous” and “completely unacceptable” on Twitter.

“It is never acceptable or appropriate for anyone to resort to violence and malicious destruction to express grievances,” he wrote in a series of tweets at midnight on Jan. 7. “The health of our Democracy is dependent upon our ability to treat one another with civility and respect and to abide by the rule of law.”

Although he never mentioned the president, Hodgson noted that “We know that the experiment of divisiveness has failed our nation, our Democracy, and one another,” calling for “a reset and a return to the formula of human decency and respect.”

Trump reelection Vice Chair Brock Cordeiro — who also serves on the Republican State Committee for the Second Bristol and Plymouth State Senate District — said he was “appalled that anyone would invade the Capitol and leave pipe bombs in front of the RNC and DNC.”

“It was absolutely reprehensible,” he added. “This was an act of domestic terrorism and insurrection.”

Cordeiro said that while he felt that Trump did not intend for his followers to violently charge into the halls of Congress, “the president’s style lends itself to those who are prone to conspiracy theory and prone to [creating] his level of violence.” 

“Words matter,” the Dartmouth Republican added. “He might not have called for it — but quite frankly, he told them to go to the Capitol and they did.”