From CNN Congressional Correspondent Brianna Keilar
Washington (CNN)– One day after House Republican Whip Eric Cantor told reporters that "a bullet was shot through the window of his campaign office" in Richmond, Virginia, his office Friday sought to clarify his remarks after learning the Richmond Police Department determined Cantor was not targeted and "random gunfire" was responsible for the incident.
"Given a recent spike in threats against Rep. Cantor, he, his family and his security were concerned the bullet found in his campaign office was related to a number of violent emails and phone messages, many of them anti-Semitic and some of them threatening gun violence," his spokesman, John Murray said.
"Cantor was very happy to find out that police attributed this particular incident to random gunfire and as his statement made clear yesterday, that we need to move on."
Thursday Cantor told reporters "Just recently I have been directly threatened. A bullet was shot through the window of my campaign office in Richmond this week and I've received threatening emails."
Questions about the circumstances arose after the Richmond Police Department provided a statement to reporters Thursday afternoon that said in part "A preliminary investigation shows that a bullet was fired into the air and struck the window in a downward direction, landing on the floor about a foot from the window. The round struck with enough force to break the windowpane but did not penetrate the window blinds. There was no other damage to the room, which is used occasionally for meetings by the congressman."
Murray said law enforcement officials had told Cantor before he spoke with reporters that police were investigating the possibility he was being targeted.
Brad Dayspring, another Cantor spokesman, said staffers called the Richmond police department a half hour before Cantor's news conference and were told the matter was under investigation. Dayspring said as far as he knows no Cantor staffers knew about the preliminary findings mentioned in the Thursday police statement, including that the bullet was "fired into the air", until hours after
Cantor spoke-about the same time reporters found out later Thursday afternoon.
The bullet entered the window of the campaign office's conference room that Cantor uses when he is at the office, Murray said.
Cantor hit Democrats Thursday for exploiting threatening emails and phone messages for political gain. As the only Jewish Republican in Congress Rep. Cantor has received threatening messages for years, Murray says, but until now has made a practice of not discussing them in public.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/03/26/staff-tries-to-clarify-cantor-remarks-after-police-say-incident-was-not-threat-but-random-gunfire/?fbid=DP7Vk-quJ_Q

