Taking sign wars to a new level? Booby-trapped sign sends someone to hospital

By: A Siegel
Published On: 9/29/2007 10:50:11 PM

Over the years, the Commonwealth of Virginia has seen its share of sign wars, with signs being pulled down, signs illegally being put up on public (or private) property, people lying in ambush with cameras (or worse) to catch people tearing down signs on their property, and so on ...

The wars, however, might just have escalated to an unprecented level, with signs booby-trapped with razor-blades sending someone to the hospital.
As reported in a Daily Kos front-page item,

Amherst County BoS candidate Tim Beverly sticks his campaign signs up on some guy's private property, claiming, bizarrely, that he has the right to put signs in front of anybody's house. The property owner takes the signs down. Beverly goes back and puts them up again. Guy goes to pull up the sign again, only to find that razor blades have been affixed to the bottom of the sign, badly lacerating the guy's hands, requiring hours of surgery in the ER to repair. Beverly, when asked about this by a reporter, says that he's "not going to let this deter [him] from running."

Surprisingly, none of the stories mention Beverly's political affiliation. See, for example, New Era Progress.COM (21 Sept)

A man pulling up a campaign sign staked in the Naola area was severely cut last week by a razor blade embedded in the bottom of the sign, authorities said.

The sign, for District 3 board of supervisors candidate Tim Beverly, was planted on private property managed by the victim,

...

"I've had a lot of my signs tampered with all over the county, particularly in the (Third) district," Beverly said on Thursday. "I have no idea why anyone would do that to one of my signs."

ABC 13 -- 27 Sept

Amherst County investigators say two of Tim Beverly's signs were embedded with box-cutter style razors.

The razors sliced the fingers of a man who tried to remove one of Beverly's signs from his property last week.  We went to Beverly's home, hoping to get his take on the issue.  A man believed to be Tim Beverly was sitting on the porch, but after spotting our car, he quickly stepped into the house and would not answer the door or our phone calls.

Check the original blogging: Waldo Jaquith for some interesting commentary about this case.

Comments



He ought to be charged with malicious wounding (Catzmaw - 9/30/2007 8:20:24 AM)
Placing razors on the bottom of a sign to deter something from happening which has already happened in the past means he intended to injure any individual who tried to do it again.  The razors could not have been meant as a deterrent, because they were hidden on the bottom of the sign, but as retaliation for the act of pulling out the sign.  They were placed there to teach the taker a lesson.  Unlawfully injuring someone with the intent to wound or maim is malicious wounding punishable by up to 20 years.  Please, someone arrest this creep. 


They are investigating ... (A Siegel - 9/30/2007 8:45:07 AM)
from everything that I've seen.

This is ugly/serious and, well, if there is the adequate evidence, I would expect someone to be prosecuted.



Party Affiliation (snolan - 9/30/2007 11:54:13 AM)
Uh, forgive my ignorance on Virginia law, but I seem to recall somewhere that local (county/city/town) elections are not allowed to mention, nor publish party affiliation...

That would explain it without adding more crap to this already shocking story of a horrible deed.



Interesting ... (A Siegel - 10/2/2007 10:51:27 AM)
Yet, in my county, it is clearly known/out in the open who are which party's candidate for Supervisor positions.