McALLEN — Police here are investigating an expletive-ridden voicemail a caller left on the office phone of Hidalgo County Republican Party Chair Adrienne Pena-Garza earlier this month.
A McAllen Police Department spokesperson confirmed Friday that the message had been reported and was being looked into by the department.
Pena-Garza posted a recording of the rant on social media last week.
About a quarter of the words in the less-than-a-minute voicemail are unprintable.
“Disgusting scum of the earth” was the only sentence the man spoke without obscenities.
Pena-Garza said the man on the recording called from Florida and left the call just prior to then-President Donald Trump’s visit to the Rio Grande Valley on Jan. 12. She said she believes the message was related to interviews she gave prior to that visit.
“We were at the office during office hours like we always are and the young gentleman who helps me there pressed play on the answering machine, and I was in the next room and I just heard this horribly disgusting human being just yelling and cussing and calling me all kinds of names,” she said.
The voicemail follows months of threats of physical violence and actual physical violence tied to the 2020 elections nationally.
It also follows similar sorts of politically charged animosity locally.
Last year a fistfight broke out at a rally supporting Trump. Recently, Pena-Garza’s counterpart across the aisle — Hidalgo County Democratic Party Chair Norma Ramirez — reported that people have been hurling insults, crude expletives and even wads of spit at her car as she drives around town.
It’s not the first intimidating event Pena-Garza’s experienced that she attributes to her role with the GOP. At one point two ladies heckled and smashed a coconut outside her window. Another time, she says, a man in a black van with a demon face on it staked out her headquarters.
The voicemail was, however, the most significant sort of negative interaction Pena-Garza has experienced, and she perceives it as a very real threat.
“There have been a lot of strange things, but nothing like this,” she said. “But can’t say that I’ve ever been afraid since this phone call. And you really have to hear it to understand. Since that has happened a part of me is experiencing a little bit of PTSD, of overlooking my shoulder and worrying about my family. That’s not the way that politics should be.”
Pena-Garza says McAllen police has stepped up patrols around her office since the call.
“It really did shake me to the core, and from now on I won’t be by myself at the headquarters,” she said. “No one should experience this, no one. No matter what party they represent.”
