See below for a powerful video from the Saddam Salim for VA Senate campaign, in which Peter Read, the parent of a Virginia Tech shooting victim, talks about why he can’t support Sen. Chap Petersen for reelection and why he IS supporting Salim instead. Here’s what Peter Read had to say:
“Because I have been waiting for you to come along, I didn’t know who you were, but I knew that somebody was going to come along and challenge this part of the ‘Virginia Way’ that really has to go. So you know, you know, in my case my daughter Mary was one of the 32 students and faculty who were shot and killed at Virginia Tech, that was April 16 2007. So when my daughter and 32 students and faculty were killed, dozens were injured and that whole community and our whole Commonwealth and our whole country and really the whole world was shattered by that, like you I thought surely change will come, the time is now. But we watched as it came and went and the change didn’t come – not enough. And then we went through Newtown and I thought surely now the time will come, the change will come. And the time came and went and the change was not enough.
And I kept going back to Richmond. I went to a lot of other places too but the
place I’ve gone back to again and again and again is Richmond. And every time I go to Richmond, I go to see my elected officials and I had a different senator who I went to see again and again and again. And I went with Andy Goddard who endorses you. I went with Martina Wines. I went with Lori Haas, whose daughter was in the same French class with Mary and shot but survived. And we would go to see him again and again and again. In February of 2020, I stood in front of the Senate Courts of Justice committee and I begged that committee to pass the assault weapons ban. I begged them. And you can go watch the video. You can look it up on the internet. It’s there. And Chap Petersen sat in the back and he knew that I was there, and then he collaborated with a couple other senators and he made sure that that didn’t pass.
I have reminded Chap of that every single time I’ve seen him since. And he has said some very ugly things in his response to the truth. And his answer amounts to, well yes but; it’s true but; I voted for it before I voted against it. And we we don’t need that anymore.
We need people of character who know where the future of this Commonwealth is going and who are going to say what they mean and mean what they say. That is who Saddam is. I know that because even though we’ve only talked a very few times, you can take the measure of a man.”
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