Authors: Joshua Cohan
Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images(BOSTON) -- Sen. Scott Brown’s campaign staffers were caught on video that is now playing on YouTube making Native American “war whoops” and doing “tomahawk chops” at a Brown campaign rally.
The recording was made Saturday near the Eire Pub in Boston during a rally for the Republican’s reelection bid.
The chants and motions are a reference to the controversy surrounding Elizabeth Warren’s self-identification as Native American, which has been a topic of a lot of discussion in the Massachusetts Senate race. Warren is Brown’s Democratic challenger.
The Brown campaign staffers shown in the video are Brown’s Deputy Chief of Staff Greg Casey, GOP Operative Brad Garrett and Constituent Service Counsel Jack Richard, Boston’s WCVB reported.
Brown said today that, “I haven’t seen it. This is the first I’m hearing of it… I don’t know what you’re specifically referring to.”
He added, however, “Certainly that’s not something I condone. It’s certainly something that if I am aware of it, I’ll tell that member to never do it again.”
The video was posted by Blue Mass Group, a progressive blog focusing on Massachusetts politics, and it comes on the heels of a newly released ad from the Brown campaign revisiting the controversy over Warren’s Native American claims which first surfaced in the spring.
The video also comes at a time when the Warren campaign is facing questions regarding her past legal work. News surfaced this morning that Warren had represented a coal mining company in a bankruptcy case.
In a statement to ABC News the Massachusetts Democratic Party called the behavior in the video “inappropriate.”
“Scott Brown’s campaign is flailing and in trouble, and this is yet another sign of that. Scott Brown and his staff are launching outrageous and offensive personal attacks to distract from the issues that matter. The behavior of his staff is completely inappropriate, but the tone of the campaign is set by the candidate,” said Democratic Party spokesman Matt House.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
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