On her way to work in Concord on Tuesday, Anne Copp’s morning commute was interrupted by a bang.
She immediately feared someone had shot at her or thrown a rock, and she called police.
The former Republican representative from Merrimack was heading up North Main Street near the Holiday Inn en route to the legislative parking garage that straddles Storrs Street. As she was making the right turn onto Storrs, she heard an eruption behind her.
Copp glanced into her rearview mirror and saw her rear windshield had shattered, with a hole about the size of a baseball on the driver’s side.
Copp quickly looked around, searching for any clue that might explain what had happened. Ice from a plow truck? She hadn’t seen one in the area. Did someone throw a rock? She didn’t see anyone on the sidewalk. Could it have been a bullet? She certainly hoped not, but admitted it was one of the first thoughts to cross her mind.
“It all happened in half a second,” Copp told the Monitor after filing a report with Concord police. “I looked all around; no plow trucks, I wasn’t under an overpass. I don’t know what it was.”
Copp continued the short distance to the legislator’s parking garage and called the police. An officer met her there and looked through the back seat but found nothing.
“They did not recover a bullet or rock or BB,” Concord police Lt. Sean Ford said. “They examined it the best they could but did not find anything obvious at the time.”
While it is not totally unheard of for auto glass to crack or shatter in cold temperatures, police are investigating to see if there is any evidence of malicious intent. Ford said officers canvassed the area in front of the Holiday Inn and are checking security cameras.
Copp said she could not help but worry about being targeted because of two stickers on her rear windshield showing her support for President Donald Trump and his 2016 campaign.
Copp represented Merrimack’s 1st district in the New Hampshire House for one term before moving out of the district last year. She ran as a Libertarian write-in candidate in November in Rockingham County but failed to secure one of the district’s seats.
(Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Copp had legislator’s license plates and was on her way to the State House. Copp said she turned in her license plates in June after leaving office and now has civilian plates. She works in Concord and was on her way there. She said she has a permit to use the legislator’s parking garage on Storrs Street.)