Vandals hit Colorado Democratic Party headquarters, 1 arrested

A 24-year-old man is under arrest, accused of smashing-in windows at the Colorado Democratic Party Headquarters in Denver early Tuesday morning. A second suspect got away.

Police say a patrol officer drove by the headquarters, located at 777 N. Santa Fe Dr., around 2:20 a.m. and saw two men smashing windows with a hammer. When the suspects noticed the officer, police say they took off on bicycles.


The officer pursued both suspects until one changed direction. The officer followed the other and arrested 24-year-old Maurice Schwenkler, without incident, a few block away.

Police say Schwenkler was wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, a shirt covering his face, blue jeans and latex gloves at the time of his arrest.

The second suspect is still at-large.

Police aren't speculating on a possible motive for the vandalism, however, Tuesday marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

But, Democratic state party chair Pat Waak attributes the vandalism to the rising tide of opposition to President Barack Obama's health care reform proposals.

"It's pretty clear that they smashed in the windows everywhere we'd hung a poster in support of health care reform, or where we had a picture of the president," Waak said. "

It's indicative of the way people's passions have been stirred up on this issue. For some, health care is the issue. And for some people, it's just people who didn't like the way the election went."

Schwenkler does not appear in the state's voter registration database, However the Denver Post reports that a person by that name received $500 from a political 527 committee called Colorado Citizens Coalition in November 2008 for "communications."

A Maurice Schwenkler also signed an online 2005 petition to free anti-war Christian protesters who were captured in Iraq, the Post reports.