Republican gubernatorial candidate Allan Fung and other campaigns condemned Tuesday the use of a noose to display a Fung campaign side in Chepachet.
“It’s a symbol of hate. It certainly doesn’t have a place in our modern society,” Fung said during a media availability at his Warwick campaign office. “…. I believe the people of Rhode Island are better than this. I know they’re better than this.”
Ray Izzo, the man who used the noose to post upside-down a Fung campaign sign, turned up a short time later at Republican-turned-independent gubernatorial candidate Joe Trillo’s Warwick office, to return two Trillo signs that had been displayed on Izzo’s lawn in a conventional way.
Unlike GOP U.S. Senate candidate Robert Flanders, Trillo had not asked Izzo to return his signs.
Izzo said his use of the noose was meant to protest Fung’s general reluctance to debate his GOP opponents ahead of the primary election last Wednesday. (Fung took part in only one primary debate with two his Republican opponents, Patricia Morgan and Giovanni Feroce, on a Woonsocket radio station.)
“This is not a racial thing,” Izzo said. “I felt upset that he wouldn’t debate Patricia Morgan. I was torn between the two of them …. Do I vote for Allan Fung, do I vote for Patricia Morgan?”
Izzo said he received a series of angry telephone calls after his noose display received media attention. After that, he took down all of the signs on his lawn.
Trillo criticized Izzo’s use of the noose — and said he thought Izzo did not realize the meaning of what he did.
“Listening to him, he’s very upset,” Trillo said. “I don’t think he realized the consequences, or the reaction that people were going to get to what he did. And I think he feels as though he didn’t mean for the negative reaction — he just is so upset with Mayor Fung’s” decision to mostly not debate during the primary, “that this is the way he chose to show his expression.”
Izzo said he also planned to return two signs he displayed in a convention fashion for GOP U.S. Senate candidate Robert Flanders after Flanders’ campaign issued this statement:
“The display is loaded with the baggage of a hateful history and extremely disrespectful towards Mayor Fung, an Asian-American leader of one of our great cities. We request it be taken down immediately and that our lawn signs be returned from this property.”
Fung’s media availability represented one of the first times since his October 2018 campaign announcement that the Cranston mayor has sought an audience of reporters to share a message with voters during the 2018 campaign. During the primary, his campaign limited reporters’ access to Fung.
Fung’s campaign press secretary, Andrew Augustus, ended the availability after Fung answered questions about the Chepachet display, and Fung was reluctant to address questions about other topics.
Trillo criticized Fung for not engaging more fully with reporters.
“I think the way Mayor Fung handles the press and handles questions should be enough to scare everybody in this state to ever vote for him as governor,” Trillo said.
