An Ohio father was killed for being a Democrat on Saturday, November 4, 2022, right before midterm elections.
Anthony King (below), 43, was gunned down in cold blood in his backyard in front of his family. A next-door neighbor, Austin Gene Gibbs (photo, left), 26, is charged with the crime (read story here).
King was mowing grass when Gibbs came onto his property and shot him several times. Gibbs was apprehended a short time later driving away from the scene in his Jeep with his father in the vehicle.
It’s unclear if Gibbs was trying to keep King from voting in today’s election, but if King already voted his ballot will be counted (see story here). News reports don’t say whether King was actually a Democrat, but Gibbs had been harassing him. “He has come over like four times confronting my husband because he thought he was a Democrat,” King’s wife told police dispatchers.
Ohio has the death penalty, which could apply to a killing adjudged terroristic in nature, but an execution moratorium is in effect after botched executions and failed execution attempts (read details here). Gibbs more likely would get a life sentence if convicted.
This incident is a bit reminiscent of the 1998 Tennessee case of Bryan Looper, a Republican candidate for state senator who murdered his Democratic opponent to get him off the ballot; Looper died in prison (see details here).
