Police called over removed campaign signs in Clinton Co.

LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — Michigan is less than a week away from the August primary election, and the Clinton County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a complaint of stolen campaign signs.

Brian Hurtekant, a Republican candidate for the Clinton County Board of Commissioners, claims that a volunteer for another Republican candidate—Ken Mitchell—illegally removed his campaign signs.

However, Mitchell says his volunteer was actually helping return the signs.

Video received from Hurtekant shows the moment another candidate’s volunteer arrived at his house on Wednesday with his missing campaign signs. Simultaneously, a Clinton County sheriff’s deputy arrives, responding to a call from Hurtekant about the stolen signs earlier that same day.

“I said I wanted to prosecute her or charge her with trespassing and larceny for my signs, Those are my signs I paid for those, I bought those,” Hurtekant said.

Hurtekant says he noticed on Monday his campaign signs were missing from two homes and replaced with signs supporting another Republican—incumbent commissioner Ken Mitchell.

Hurtekant then reached out to the volunteer to get his signs back in a voicemail, but she did not reply until Tuesday evening. Soon after, he called the police.

“If an individual has a change of heart, certainly I respect that,” said Hurtekant. “And it’s up to the homeowner to remove that sign. Most likely, they would reach out to me.”

However, volunteer Karen Andrews says the homeowner asked her to take Hurtekant’s signs and give them back to him.

“All I wanted to do was a good deed and return the signs that belong to him,” said Andrews. “I wanted to return them to him. But apparently, he saw it differently.”

Mitchell, however, is concerned about what happened with his own campaign signs.

“She did a good deed, she picked up the signs. She didn’t steal the signs she took the signs back to the rightful owner,” said Mitchell. “So she could have thrown them away but she did not. My signs have disappeared. no one has returned them back to me”

Mitchell says he hopes the focus can return to the campaign issues.

The Clinton County Sheriff’s office says it can not comment further pending an investigation and says that the complaint has been referred to the county prosecutor.

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