68-year-old caught on video in Pasco vandalizing ‘COVID Clint’ campaign sign

A 68-year-old man was caught in a brazen daylight act of vandalism in sight of dozens of drivers on a busy Pasco roadway.

Michael J. Harrington was spray painting “COVID Clint” across one of Franklin County Commissioner Clint Didier’s campaign signs on Road 68, according to the ticket he was issued by a Pasco police officer.

One driver who spotted him was Stephen Bauman, a Franklin County Republican committee precinct officer and vocal supporter of Didier.

Bauman told the Herald that he was driving past at 5 p.m. on Oct. 2 when he saw Harrington standing on a step stool with a spray paint can.

Bauman pulled over and began using his cellphone to video tape the stranger.

When he called him out, Harrington claimed he was exercising his “First Amendment right,” and refused to stop until he finished writing “COVID Clint” twice across the large sign — first in blue and then in white.

“You’re vandalizing somebody’s sign,” Bauman says to Harrington. “It’s not your First Amendment right to vandalize. You know better than that.”

Bauman told the Herald that sign near the Maverick gas station and Interstate 182 has been vandalized several times during the recent campaign season.

He called police and told Harrington several times to stop. When Harrington finished, he picked up the stool and started walking back to his car.

Bauman told him he needed to stop and Harrington responded, “Or what? Or what?”

When Bauman said that he would be put him in jail, Harrington replied, “I don’t think so.”

“Well, they’re on their way, so we’ll see what they have to say,” Bauman said.

Harrington was not jailed. He was ticketed and released.

Pasco Sgt. Rigo Pruneda confirmed to the Herald that Harrington was cited for third-degree malicious mischief, a gross misdemeanor, in Pasco Municipal Court, according to the ticket filed the next day on Oct. 3. The offense carries a maximum sentence of a year in jail and a fine of up to $5,000.

‘Disappointed in myself’

Harrington later told the Tri-City Herald in a letter that he is deeply ashamed of his actions, and when he saw that the sign had not been replaced he returned to scrub the graffiti off.

He said he offered $1,000 in compensation for the damage, but the offer was refused.

“I broke the laws of society. My family is furious, but worst of all, I am very disappointed in myself,” he said. “I wish to personally and publicly sincerely apologize to Clint Didier for my action.”

In a recent letter to the editor, Harrington said that he believes in civil disobedience.

“We have a moral obligation to resist or disobey laws we consider unjust,” he said. “My criminal conviction history reflects the price I have paid for acting on this belief.”

He said he respects that Didier acts on his beliefs, but believes he crossed a line during the COVID pandemic. Didier encouraged others to break the law and engage in risky behavior when he encouraged others in the community to defy Washington’s COVID mask mandate and risk their lives, he said.

“We will never know how many answered his pleas to not wear masks. We will never know how many caught COVID, because they did not wear a mask,” Harrington wrote. “We will never know how many are in the ground today because they trusted Clint Didier.”

Clint Didier and COVID

Didier is running for a second four-year term as a Franklin County commissioner.

He has been a vocal opponent to measures aimed at curbing the spread of COVID. That includes being part of a legal challenge to Gov. Jay Inslee’s use of emergency powers to shut down businesses that violated the law.

Didier also protested a masking requirement when he refused to wear one at public county commission meetings starting in August 2021. The initial meeting dissolved into a anti-mask protest after Commisssioner Brad Peck left the meeting.

His continued stance resulted in a series of complaints to the state and an investigation by the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries.

The commissioner compared his decision to go maskless during meetings to civil rights leader Rosa Parks’ decision to not give up her seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala.