Michael Steven Sandford being removed from Donald Trump rally in Las Vegas by police on Saturday
Michael Steven Sandford, a British man stormed a rally to shoot Donald Trump.
He has however been detained and charged with attempting to seize a
police officer’s gun at a Las Vegas rally in order to commit an act of
violence against the American presidential hopeful.
The Guardian reports that Sandford was arrested at the Saturday
rally after grabbing at the holster and handle of a gun at the hip of a
Las Vegas police officer who was providing security at the event for the
presumptive Republican nominee.
A federal magistrate on Monday found that Sandford was “a danger to the community and a risk of non-appearance”
and ordered that he be held without bail, according to a spokesperson
for the Department of Justice, who also confirmed that Sandford is a
British citizen.
A spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: “We are providing assistance following the arrest of a British national in Las Vegas.”
British authorities are understood to have become involved on Sunday.
The complaint, which was filed on Monday in the US district court for Nevada, says Sandford “knowingly
attempted to engage in an act of physical violence against Donald J
Trump ... by attempting to seize a firearm from Las Vegas Metropolitan
Department Officer”.
Sandford allegedly told a US agent, referred to in the complaint as
special agent Swierkowski, that he had driven to Las Vegas from
California in order to kill the presumptive Republican nominee for
president.
According to the complaint, Sandford had gone to a gun range called
Battlefield Vegas on 17 June in order to learn how to shoot. There, he
fired 20 rounds from a Glock 9mm pistol, which, the complaint says, was
the first time he had ever fired a gun.
The document also states that Sandford told Swierkowski that if he
were on the street tomorrow, he would try it again. He claimed he had
lived in the US for approximately a year and a half and had been
planning to attempt to kill Trump for about a year but finally felt
confident enough to try it on Saturday, according to Swierkowski’s
report.
He also told Swierkowski that he had tickets for a Trump rally in
Phoenix, Arizona, later that day, and planned to try to kill Trump there
as well.
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