On a weekly call, Congressional candidate Tracy Mitrano criticized incumbent Rep. Tom Reed for speculating who vandalized his headquarters in Corning.

On Aug. 25, a brick was thrown through one of the windows of Reed’s hometown office in Corning. Mitrano said she thought it was inappropriate for Reed to speculate about who vandalized the Corning headquarters without any information from Corning City Police regarding an investigation or evidence.

It is not clear whether Reed speculated that it was any type of person who committed the act of vandalism, as during his press conference he stated that Republicans and Democrats are taking a united stance against violence across the country and stated one comment about how differences in political beliefs should not be handled with violence during his press conference regarding the incident.

“That sends a message to kids that violence is going to happen while you’re carrying out your political beliefs,” he said during his conference call. “That’s not what we are in America, that’s not how we settle our differences. We settle our differences at the ballot box and at the end of the day we try to unite our country, not divide it.”

According to Mitrano, Reed said the brick that smashed his office window was thrown by extremists. “His campaign spokesman called it ‘another sad example of the radicalism we see every day from our opponents and the far left,’ “ reads the summary of her weekly press call. “Mitrano repeated her condemnation of vandalism and accused Reed of invoking ‘left-wing extremists’ as a straw man, and a way to tar her with the same brush.”

She called on Mayor Bill Boland and Corning police to do a thorough investigation of the incident and bring the perpetrator to justice. “This is McCarthy-like stuff,” Mitrano said. “We would expect that a congressman would not stoop to such tactics. It was beneath the dignity of his office to make such statements, without any evidence or facts behind them.”

“As a politician, I may not be perfect, but I will dedicate myself to facts,” she said. “I will never make a claim about Tom Reed without substantiation. I challenge him to do the same.”