Washington, Oct. 14, (dpa/GNA) – US authorities on Sunday said that an armed man was stopped at a police checkpoint near a campaign rally of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Southern California.
On Saturday, before Trump was due to speak at a rally in the Coachella Valley west of Los Angeles, police stopped the 49-year-old man who was trying to drive a car onto the premises.
Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco later said in a press conference that the man had two unregistered weapons and ammunition with him, as well as various passports and driving licences carrying different names. The car was not registered and the number plate was “obviously fake.”
The 49-year-old was taken into custody, charged for violating gun laws and released on bail, Bianco said. The investigation is ongoing.
The US attorneys office, US Secret Service and FBI said in a joint statement that the incident “did not impact protective operations and former President Trump was not in any danger. While no federal arrest has been made at this time, the investigation is ongoing.”
Bianco stressed the man was detained before Trump’s arrival at the site. The sheriff added he was convinced, without providing concrete evidence, that the police had “prevented something bad from happening.”
“I if you’re asking me right now, I probably did have deputies that prevented the third assassination [on Trump],” Bianco said in response to a reporter’s question.
After the suspect’s release, several US journalists spoke with the man, who rejected the accusation of an assassination plot as nonsense.
The New York Post quoted security sources as saying that the Secret Service considered it unlikely that the man had wanted to assassinate Trump. The tabloid also cited unnamed sources as saying that the suspect was a member of a right-wing extremist group and was probably only carrying the weapons for personal defence.
In mid-July, a gunman shot at Trump from a roof during an election campaign event in Pennsylvania, with a bullet grazing the former US president’s right ear. One audience member died and two other spectators were badly injured in the attack. The gunman was shot dead.
The Secret Service also believes that it foiled a second assassination attempt on Trump in Florida in September.
GNA