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By Lauren Gill<\/p>\n
Brooklyn Paper<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This is not how you rock the vote.<\/p>\n
Someone hurled a rock through a Gowanus family’s door after it put signs up supporting presidential candidate Donald Trump, leaving the household patriarch steaming about the struggles of supporting the conservative cause in a largely liberal neighborhood. <\/p>\n
“I was angry that’s for sure,” said Joshua Ramos who lives on 11th Street between Third and Fourth avenues with his two young kids. “It’s not fair, you can’t put anything up for Trump.” <\/p>\n
Ramos said the vandal pitched the projectile through the glass of his front door while he and his family were asleep on the night of June 24, then tore one of his three Trump signs in half. <\/p>\n
The registered Republican claims he will have to dish out $2,400 to repair the door, but is mostly peeved that the rock-thrower put his tots in danger. <\/p>\n
“There’s people who don’t even realize there’s two children in the house,” he said. “How could they even do something like this? It’s disgraceful.”<\/p>\n
He won’t be displaying any more banners for the Donald out of fear for his youngsters’ safety, he said.<\/p>\n
Ramos says he reported the vandalism to the police, but they haven’t had any luck tracking down the perpetrator so far. The cops are also not investigating the attack as a hate crime, despite Ramos’s best efforts to convince them otherwise. <\/p>\n
He doesn’t think any of the people who live on his street are responsible — they’re all friendly, he says — but rather that it was a drunk radical from elsewhere in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n
“You know there’s lots of liberal people around here — they got drunk and did what they had to do,” he said. “I’ve got my [U.S.] flag up — I’m surprised they didn’t tear it down or burn it.”<\/p>\n
Ramos says he has been following Trump since the 1980s and has backed the businessman’s presidential bid from day one — he is worried about terrorist attacks, and likes Trump’s immigration policies and the fact that he is not a career politician.<\/p>\n
“I can’t even take my kids anywhere, I’m constantly looking around,” he said. “It’s just like living in a different world, there’s no jobs, it’s corrupt. I think we need to get someone in there who isn’t a politician that can’t be bought.” <\/p>\n
But even with his steadfast support, Ramos said it is difficult to discuss his political views openly in the left-leaning neighborhood — in his three-block electoral district alone, 204 people voted in this year’s Democratic primary, while just eight cast a ballot in the Republican race.<\/p>\n
“You can’t even talk about it, people look at you like you’re an alien,” he said. <\/p>\n
Reach reporter Lauren Gill at lgill@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260–2511. Follow her on Twitter @laurenk_gill<\/p>\n
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