Miami Herald: “The Republican Party canvasser who was brutally beaten in Hialeah on Sunday did not say the attack was politically motivated when police officers first interviewed him that evening, according to a police spokesman.
An initial incident report said nothing about politics. But on Monday morning, after talking to the victim’s father, Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted that the canvasser was attacked “by 4 animals who told him Republicans weren’t allowed in their neighborhood.” When Hialeah police re-interviewed the canvasser, Christopher Monzon, hours after the Rubio tweet, he told them he did believe politics played a role in his beating. In a sworn statement Monday afternoon, Monzon — who was canvassing for the Republican Party of Florida and has long-standing ties to the white supremacist movement — said one of his attackers told him that “he could not pass through because he was a Republican,” a police report released late Tuesday shows. “He didn’t mention it in the first interview. He did in the second,” Hialeah Police Department Sgt. José Torres told the Miami Herald. “We’re not going to say that the whole entire situation was politically motivated, but the guy was wearing a Marco Rubio shirt.””