Mike Bloomberg's Edgewater Campaign Office Vandalized
CHICAGO (CBS)-- Mike Bloomberg's campaign office on the North Side was vandalized.
The words "racist" and "sexist" were sprayed painted in red on the front windows at the office on Bryn Mawr near Broadway in Edgewater.
Bloomberg is a Democratic presidential candidate and the former mayor of New York.
The billioniare has been spending heavily heading into the Illinois primary on March 17.
However, in the next primary contest in South Carolina, Bloomberg is not on the ballot and because the state's primary rules don't permit write-ins, he won't receive any votes in the contest.
In a statement, Bloomberg national traveling press secretary, Galia Slayen, said: "This act of vandalism against our Chicago office mirrors those we've seen in recent weeks in states across the country. While we don't yet know who is responsible, we know these attacks echo divisive language used by the Sanders campaign and its supporters. Democrats need to come together if we are going to defeat Donald Trump, and Senator Sanders needs to condemn these attacks and end his campaign's dangerous rhetoric that is encouraging his supporters to engage in this behavior."
In the last debate, Bloomberg was attacked over non disclosure agreements regarding allegations from women of workplace misconduct at his media company.
Bloomberg protested that none of the agreements "accuse me of doing anything, other than maybe they didn't like a joke I told."
The former New York City mayor has also come under fire for pouring millions of his own money into his campaign, leading to charges he effectively bought his spot in the presidential race and on the debate stage. His past comments about women and his support of policies such as stop-and-frisk have also made him a target of his Democratic competitors.
Bloomberg has said he "inherited" the policy of stop-and-frisk from his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani.
"I inherited the police practice of stop-and-frisk, and as part of our effort to stop gun violence it was overused. By the time I left office, I cut it back by 95%, but I should've done it faster and sooner," Bloomberg said. "I regret that and I have apologized — and I have taken responsibility for taking too long to understand the impact it had on Black and Latino communities."
