‘So much polarization’: Survivors reflect on the impacts of politically-motivated gunfire

At the bottom of her bedroom drawer, Emalee Morley keeps a stack of emerald t-shirts for sentimental value that she admits she'll probably never wear again.

The shirts bring back memories from 2022 when Morley was the finance director for mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg. She wore the bright shirts – green for Greenberg – throughout his Democratic campaign to lead the city of Louisville, Kentucky. While pulling each carefully folded shirt out of the drawer, she told Scripps News she couldn't bring herself to get rid of them.

"It's sad that this has such bittersweet memories with it because it was such a fun campaign," she said while holding the stack of shirts. "It was so fun."

The bitter memories began on Valentine's Day 2022 when a man with a gun walked into the small campaign office where Morley, Greenberg, and a group of staffers were meeting.

The gunman fired multiple shots at Greenberg before another staffer forced the man out of the room.

The gunfire tore a hole in Greenberg's clothes, but he and his staff were not wounded. As the group barricaded themselves in the room, Morley dialed 911 and calmly told a dispatcher what happened.

"This man is running for mayor," she said in the recorded call. "So this is certainly 100% targeted."

Greenberg told Scripps News he had never thought that he needed security at his campaign headquarters.

"We wanted people to come into our campaign office. We were trying to reach every voter that we could talk to," he said. "Certainly when I thought about running for mayor, and all the pros and cons ... [violence] was not even on the list that my family and I had considered."

The accused shooter, Quintez Brown, pleaded guilty to federal charges in July and is awaiting sentencing. In his plea agreement, Brown admitted he shot at Greenberg because he was running for mayor.

Federal task force investigates violence and threats targeting elections

The Louisville shooting is one of more than 100 cases of criminal threats investigated by the federal Election Threats Task Force, established by the Department of Justice in 2021 to address threats of violence surrounding elections.

"The promise of our democracy is that people will not employ violence to achieve their preferred outcomes," United States Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a task force meeting in September .

So far, the task force has filed charges in 12 different states involving 18 separate cases.

Those prosecutions included charges against a Texas man named Christopher Chad Stark. He is now serving a two-year prison sentence for placing a Craigslist ad seeking the murder of local election officials in Georgia, following the 2020 election.

In Michigan, the task force charged Katelyn Jones with sending threatening messages to a Republican election official who initially voted against certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Jones pleaded guilty to allegations of sending the election official photos of a mutilated corpse, and posting on social media a photo of the official's daughter with the words "be a shame if something happened to your daughter at school." Court records show Jones was sentenced to serve 30 days in federal prison.

The task force also brought charges against Solomon Peña, a former Republican candidate for the New Mexico State House of Representatives.

Authorities say he orchestrated a series of drive-by shootings in December 2022 and January 2023 that targeted the homes of elected Democrats in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Garland described Peña as "an unsuccessful candidate for the state legislature who claimed that the election had been 'rigged' against him."

Some of the gunfire in New Mexico hit the home of longtime state senator Linda Lopez while she and her two children slept.

Sen. Lopez and her family were not injured and initially thought the noises that awoke them were fireworks. The next morning, she discovered a bullet hole in the wall of her bedroom and began to wonder why her home would have been targeted.

"The first thing that popped up in my mind: I'm a state senator. A political person," Sen. Lopez said.

Peña has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial on federal charges. Two accused co-conspirators have entered guilty pleas for their roles in the shootings and are awaiting sentencing.

Sen. Lopez said she does not know why she was targeted, but she pointed to the broader political climate as a possible contributing factor.

"I've been in politics for a couple of decades. When I first came in, we would have disagreements between both parties, but we were always able to sit down and come to an agreement," she said. "Right now, there's so much polarization. Nobody's willing to talk to anybody."

The attempted assassination of a presidential candidate

Gunfire at a rally for former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania in July injured the candidate and left a supporter dead.

The incident brought traumatic memories rushing back for others who have experienced political violence firsthand.

"I saw the news and my heart dropped," Greenberg said. "I do not support President Trump in his campaign, but I empathize with what he was dealing with in that moment... no one should be a victim of gun violence."

"I sobbed all day, and I would never vote for the man," Morley said. "I don't want anyone to have to go through what I went through. Not the President, not the supporters who were there."

Sen. Lopez said the rally shooting showed there is more to be done to protect public figures in the current polarized political environment.

"I understand the fear that goes through you. There's PTSD that one still has to deal with, and I know [Trump] is dealing with it," she said. "Our country is going down the wrong road."

Survivors contemplate their political futures

Hours after he survived an assassination attempt in Louisville, Greenberg convened a press conference to address the public.

"It was incredibly difficult," he said. "But I thought if I was holding myself as someone who wanted to help lead our community forward toward healing, towards reducing the amount of gun violence, that it was important that I at least say something that afternoon."

Greenberg told Scripps News he briefly discussed with his wife whether he should drop out of the race after the attack, but decided to keep going at her urging. He won the election and took office last year. Now, he said he takes his security seriously.

"Not a day goes by that I don't think about this. Every night before I go to bed when I'm checking doors are locked or putting my home alarm on, I think about what happened," he said. "I am the most fortunate person in the world to still be here today."

Despite the violence that could have cost her and her colleagues their lives, Morley decided to continue to work on Greenberg's campaign through the election.

After that, she decided to step away from the political career she loved because of the ongoing trauma of the attack.

"I just can't bring myself to come to work every day in a space like that, where that's a possibility," Morley said. "Because I just don't know... what's going to feel safe anymore."

Sen. Lopez said she also contemplated quitting politics after being targeted. She said she and her family are still dealing with PTSD since the drive-by shooting, but she decided to keep doing the work.

"I don't intimidate easily," she said.

"Members of my community.. other families who've been victims of violence and gun violence.. They still have to pick up the pieces and go on," Lopez said. "I should be able to do the same."

All three survivors told Scripps News they are concerned about the heated rhetoric surrounding the upcoming election.