Skip to main content

A BRITON TRIES TO KILL DONALD TRUMP

A Briton who tried to grab a police officer's gun at a Donald Trump rally in Las Vegas said he wanted to shoot the US candidate, court papers say.

Michael Steven Sandford, 20, did not enter a plea when he appeared before a judge in Nevada and was remanded in custody until a hearing on 5 July.

He is charged with an act of violence "on restricted grounds".

He had reportedly tried to seize the gun after saying he was seeking Mr Trump's autograph at Saturday's rally.

He said he had been planning to try and shoot Mr Trump for about a year but had decided to act now because he finally felt confident enough to do so, court papers say.




A federal judge found Mr Sandford, who reportedly appeared in court in shackles, to be a danger and risk of non-appearance, and he was ordered detained pending his preliminary hearing.

When asked about the arrest of Michael Sandford, a Foreign Office spokesman said: "We are providing assistance following an arrest of a British national in Las Vegas."

Earlier on Monday, Mr Trump fired his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, who oversaw his triumph in the primary contests.


The US presidential election campaign of 2016 has been fringed with violence. Almost everywhere Donald Trump goes he attracts protests.

The tycoon often mocks the demonstrators and there have been clashes with his supporters, both inside and outside of his packed, emotionally charged rallies. For some, the violence has stirred dark memories of 1968 when Democratic presidential contender Robert Kennedy was assassinated and riots broke out at the party's convention in Chicago.

This year events have not descended to those awful depths but still, the country feels edgy and the Secret Service, which guards candidates as well as presidents, has been on high alert.

In March in Ohio agents swarmed around Mr Trump after a man apparently attempted to climb on to the stage where he was speaking. Other events have been cancelled because of security concerns. With five months to go, many Americans are worried about where this election is heading.

'Expected to be killed'

According to the court papers, Mr Sandford said he had never fired a gun before but went to a range in Las Vegas on 17 June to learn how to shoot.

At Saturday's rally at the Treasure Island Casino, he allegedly tried to grab the officer's weapon because it was in an unlocked position and therefore, he said, the easiest way to get a gun to shoot Mr Trump.

Court Documents say Mr Sandford acknowledged he knew he would only be able to fire one or two rounds, and expected to be killed during an attempt on Mr Trump's life.



He told police if he had not tried to kill Mr Trump at this rally he would have tried again at a rally in Phoenix, for which he had already booked tickets, the papers say.

He told investigators he had been in the US for one and a half years, the court papers say.

Court research showed he was unemployed, living out of his car and in the US illegally, the Associated Press news agency reports.

A federal public defender said he had autism and had attempted suicide, the agency adds.

Recent opinion polls suggest Mr Trump is trailing his Democrat opponent Hillary Clinton.

There were reports over the weekend that Mrs Clinton's campaign was ahead in spending in key swing states.

Mr Trump's former campaign manager says he still supports his candidacy, despite being sacked.

Corey Lewandowski said the billionaire businessman had changed the way American politics was viewed for the better.

Media captionBarbara Plett-Usher reports: Corey Lewandowski's "aggressive style sometimes got him in trouble"

Reports in American media say he clashed with the more traditional strategists Mr Trump has hired recently to try and reshape his operation for the November election.

Mr Trump is facing strong resistance from senior members of his own party over his strident tone, hard-line immigration policy and falling poll numbers.

Americans go to the polls on 8 November to elect a president to succeed Democrat Barack Obama, who is stepping down after two terms in office, which have seen the Republicans gain control of both houses of Congress.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Sphere

Photograph by Elena Saavedra Buckley. Once when I was about twelve I was walking down the dead-end road in Albuquerque where I grew up, around twilight with a friend. Far beyond the end of the road was a mountain range, and at that time of evening it flattened into a matte indigo wash, like a mural. While kicking down the asphalt we saw a small bright light appear at the top of the peaks, near where we knew radio towers to occasionally emit flashes of red. But this glare, blinding and colorless, grew at an alarming rate. It looked like a single floodlight and then a tight swarm beginning to leak over the edge of the summit. My friend and I became frightened, and as the light poured from the crest, our murmurs turned into screams. We stood there, clutching our heads, screaming. I knew this was the thing that was going to come and get me. It was finally going to show me the horrifying wiring that lay just behind the visible universe and that was inside of me too. And then, a couple se...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Private Life: On James Baldwin

JAMES BALDWIN IN HYDE PARK, LONDON. PHOTOGRAPH BY ALLAN WARREN. Via Wikimedia Commons , licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 .   In his review of James Baldwin’s third novel, Another Country , Lionel Trilling asked: “How, in the extravagant publicness in which Mr. Baldwin lives, is he to find the inwardness which we take to be the condition of truth in the writer?” But Baldwin’s sense of inwardness had been nourished as much as it had been damaged by the excitement and danger that came from what was public and urgent. Go Tell It on the Mountain and Giovanni’s Room dramatized the conflict between a longing for a private life, even a spiritual life, and the ways in which history and politics intrude most insidiously into the very rooms we try hardest to shut them out of. Baldwin had, early in his career, elements of what T. S. Eliot attributed to Henry James, “a mind so fine that it could not be penetrated by an idea.” The rest of the time, however, he did not have this luxury, as pub...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Rejection Plot

Print from Trouble , by Bruce Charlesworth, a portfolio which appeared in The Paris Review in the magazine’s Fall 1985 issue. Rejection may be universal, but as plots go, it’s second-rate—all buildup and no closure, an inherent letdown. Stories are usually defined by progress: the development of events toward their conclusions, characters toward their fates, questions toward understanding, themes toward fulfillment. But unlike marriage, murder, and war, rejection offers no obstacles to surmount, milestones to mark, rituals to observe. If a plot point is a shift in a state of affairs—the meeting of a long-lost twin, the fateful red stain on a handkerchief—rejection offers none; what was true before is true after. Nothing happens, no one is materially harmed, and the rejected party loses nothing but the cherished prospect of something they never had to begin with. If the romance plot sets up an enticing question—Will they or won’t they? — the rejection plot spoils everything upfront:...
Post a Comment
Read more