'Under Investigation': 16 Months Later, No One Charged in Shots Outside Alma Hernandez's Home

On Oct. 11, The New York Times told the country what Tucson already knew: state Rep. Alma Hernandez has spent years being threatened, from the far left and the far right, over Israel, over vaccines, over just about everything she has stood for since her first campaign drew David Duke's attention.

The Times ran it under her own question: "Is it really worth it?"

There is a simpler question underneath it. Take every incident against her that has made the public record, and ask who has been held responsible.

The answer, as of today, is nobody.

On June 12, 2025, someone fired at a campaign staffer's car parked at the Tucson house Alma Hernandez calls home. The house was also serving as the congressional campaign headquarters of her brother, Daniel Hernandez. The driver's-side window was shattered. Their mother and four staffers were inside, in the dining room. Nobody heard the shot.

Tucson Police spokesman Sgt. Richard Gradillas said it was "too early" to say whether the household had been targeted. Police said they found "evidence consistent with a gun being fired." The case was under investigation.

Sixteen months later, nobody has been named. The Times reports that police "never found the shooter" and never determined whether the house was the target. The Arizona Daily Star's Tim Steller wrote on Oct. 18 that the motive "was never established." There has been no suspect, no arrest and no public update from the department.

Daniel Hernandez said at the time that the shot landed "just steps from where my family sleeps and our team works."

Alma said something sadder: "It's not the first time we deal with something like this in our family."

In December 2023, unsigned flyers carrying Alma Hernandez's home address were handed out overnight across several blocks of her neighborhood. They accused her of working to "silence pro-Palestinian colleagues."

She told the Arizona Daily Star she was afraid to sleep at home. Tucson Police offered to increase security around her house. The author was never identified, and nobody was charged.

The timing stings. Seven months earlier, Gov. Katie Hobbs had signed SB1061, which makes it a class 5 felony to post a public official's home address when doing so poses an imminent and serious threat. The law was written for people exactly like her. But it covers information made available on the internet. A paper flyer on a doorstep sits outside the very law Arizona passed to stop it.

This year, according to the Times, state police opened an investigation into a message threatening to "find, torture and brutally murder" Hernandez, her friends and one of her Chihuahuas.

The Times did not name the agency or report an outcome. No arrest has been reported.

At the end of June, several of her state Senate campaign signs in Tucson were defaced in red hand-lettering: "Zionist B*tch." Jewish community leaders and elected officials condemned it in a joint statement.

No police report, investigation or suspect appears anywhere in the public record. Three weeks later she won the Legislative District 20 Senate primary with 54 percent of the vote.

The Times inventory of her house reads like a field office: cameras, alarms, a fingerprint lock, iron bars on the windows, a floodlight. She cut down two trees after police warned they could hide an intruder. Her mother has fielded menacing calls.

"Politicians are no longer treated like we're human," she told the Times.

She is not alone. The Bridging Divides Initiative counts 57 confirmed threats against Arizona county and municipal officials since 2022. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes now lets candidates spend campaign money on personal security, saying it "has become a necessary part of running for and holding elected office."

Read that twice. In Arizona, the official answer to threats against lawmakers is that lawmakers can pay for their own protection.

Hernandez has critics, and they are not all making threats. Steller's Oct. 18 column noted that, when asked, she did not give specific examples of recent threats, and he aired critics' complaints that she and her supporters have tried to intimidate opponents. One July post from her side accused two men of taking her campaign sign. The sign turned out to be a handwritten one reading "Evil Torta."

The anonymous site Hernandont.com, which urges voters to defeat both her and her sister, Rep. Consuelo Hernandez, in 2028, is politics, not menace. It argues their votes and their consulting business. It publishes no home address and makes no threats. In January, Alma called out a lobbyist for Creosote Partners over a Hernandont sticker on his laptop. Nobody has shown who runs the site.

Hard criticism is not a threat. A bullet through a car window is. Only one of those has a police case number, and it is still open.

For Tucson Police: Is the June 12, 2025 shooting case open, suspended or closed? Has anyone been identified? Was the 2023 flyer case ever closed, and was anyone interviewed?

For the Arizona Department of Public Safety: Is DPS the "state police" agency that opened the 2026 threat investigation? Has it identified the sender, and has the case been referred for prosecution?

For Rep. Alma Hernandez: Has any agency told you the status of any of these cases?

Those answers belong in the public record. Right now they are not there.

Built from public reporting and records through Oct. 20, 2026, including The New York Times, the Arizona Daily Star and the Arizona Mirror. Tucson Police, DPS and Rep. Hernandez's office were asked about the status of each case; responses will be added with a dated update. Pesach Lattin has known the Hernandez sisters since about 2021. The Arizona Inquirer is reader-supported. No paid placement in editorial.