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    Man arrested near Donald Trump’s California rally with loaded guns, police say

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    A man armed with guns and false press and VIP passes was apprehended by authorities at a campaign rally in California on Saturday being held by Donald Trump.The suspect, identified as Las Vegas resident Vem Miller, was intercepted by police at a checkpoint about a half-mile from an entrance to the rally in Coachella Valley, California, soon before it began, police said Sunday.Police said Miller was carrying a loaded shotgun, handgun and high-capacity magazine and is believed to be a member of a rightwing anti-government organization.Miller was booked for possessing a loaded firearm and a high capacity magazine – and was released after posting $5,000 bail, police records show.“The incident did not impact the safety of former president Trump or attendees of the event,” the Riverside county sheriff’s office said in a press release.The Secret Service put out a statement saying it was apprised of the arrest: “The incident did not impact protective operations. The Secret Service extends its gratitude to the deputies and local partners who assisted in safeguarding last night’s events.”The US Attorney’s Los Angeles office, in a statement on Sunday, also said Trump was not in danger, citing the US Secret Service. The statement added that while no federal arrest had been made, an investigation was ongoing.Riverside county sheriff Chad Bianco said he believed at a press conference on Sunday that Miller was plotting to kill Trump, but acknowledged that was “speculation”. “What we do know is he showed up with multiple passports with different names, an unregistered vehicle with a fake license plate and loaded firearms,” the sheriff said at a news conference on Sunday afternoon.The suspect later told US media that he was a Trump supporter who bought the guns for his own safety and notified police at a checkpoint that they were in the trunk of his car. “These accusations are complete bullshit,” Miller said. “I’m an artist, I’m the last person that would cause any violence and harm to anybody.”He said he was surprised by his arrest, and had been detained for about eight hours.Miller holds a UCLA master’s degree, and in 2022 ran for Nevada state assembly. Bianco said Miller considers himself a so-called sovereign citizen, a group of people who do not believe they are subject to any government statutes unless they consent to them.Bianco said Miller’s identity card was enough to raise suspicion with local rally security. “They were different enough to cause the deputies alarm,” he said, according to the Riverside Press-Enterprise.Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt in July, when a gunman’s bullet grazed his ear during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. In September, another man was charged with trying to assassinate Trump after Secret Service agents discovered him hiding with a rifle near Trump’s Palm Beach golf course. He has since pleaded not guilty.Bianco said US Secret Service officials said his department went “above and beyond” in their efforts to protect Trump and others who attended the rally.Bianco also said the FBI is questioning another man after bomb-detecting dogs “repeatedly” identified him as possibly dangerous. That man was not allowed in the rally, Bianco said.Miller is scheduled to appear at the Indio Larson justice center on 2 January 2025, according to the Riverside county sheriff’s department inmate database.Reuters contributed reporting More

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      Secret Service made numerous errors before first near-assassination of Trump, Senate report says

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      The breadth of known Secret Service errors that led up to Donald Trump’s first near-assassination in July widened on Wednesday with the release of a report by the US Senate that found there was no one clearly in charge of decision-making for security at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, that day – causing “foreseeable, preventable” failings before the former president was shot.The catalogue of security errors that allowed a would-be assassin to fire seven rounds at Trump at the election rally include failing to set up sight-line barriers around the outdoor rally area, the absence of a plan to secure the building the shooter took aim from and general communication chaos.A bullet clipped the former president’s ear, while one rally-goer was killed and two others were badly wounded.An agent with only informal training with drone equipment called a toll-free tech support hotline for help, delaying security operations involving surveillance drone equipment, according to a preliminary summary of findings made public on Wednesday.A request ahead of time for additional unmanned security assets was denied, the report said. Thomas Crooks, 20, fired at Trump before being killed by government snipers.“Multiple foreseeable and preventable planning and operational failures by [the Secret Service] contributed to Crooks’ ability to carry out the assassination attempt of former president Trump on July 13,” the preliminary report said.“These included unclear roles and responsibilities, insufficient coordination with state and local law enforcement, the lack of effective communications, and inoperable C-UAS systems, among many others,” it continued, referring to equipment such as drones, or counter-unmanned aircraft systems.The Secret Service chief of communications, Anthony Guglielmi, said: “The weight of our mission is not lost on us and in this hyper-dynamic threat environment, the US Secret Service cannot fail.“Many of the insights gained from the Senate report align with the findings from our mission assurance review and are essential to ensuring that what happened on July 13 never happens again,” Guglielmi added.The Secret Service has already openly admitted failures, both to the US Congress and in press conferences, and the head of the service at the time quit after the Butler shooting.The bipartisan Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee found that key resource requests were also denied, and some were not even made. Secret Service advance agents did not request a surveillance team for the rally’s 15,000 attendees.About 155 law enforcement officers were at the Butler rally on 13 July, compared with 410 security personnel dispatched to guard the first lady, Jill Biden, who was in the state about an hour away.The report found that many of the problems identified by the committee “remain unaddressed” by the Secret Service.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Overall, the lack of an effective chain of command, which came across clearly when we conducted interviews,” said the Connecticut Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal on Tuesday. “It was almost like an Abbott and Costello farce, with ‘who’s on first?’ finger-pointing by all of the different actors.”But the central failure to secure a roof of a nearby factory within shooting distance of the rally stage, from where the shots were fired, remains unanswered. The first reported sighting of would-be assassin Crooks was at 4.26pm, more than 90 minutes before Trump would begin speaking.At 5.38pm, a Beaver county sniper, stationed inside the building from which Crooks would later shoot atop its roof, sent photos of Crooks to the local team’s group chat, but Secret Service counter-snipers on a roof close to where Trump was due to speak were not notified.“What I saw made me ashamed,” said the acting Secret Service director, Ronald Rowe Jr. “I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.”The report was released as investigators investigate a second domestic assassination attempt on the former president, as well as an apparent Iranian plot to kill him.In the second domestic attempt, Ryan Routh, 58, was arrested on 15 September, suspected of pointing a rifle through the fence at Trump’s golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, where the former president was playing.On Tuesday, federal prosecutors filed a charge of attempted assassination against Routh, on top of previous charges. More

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      We live in an era of political violence. The rich and famous aren’t the primary targets | Moira Donegan

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      It is not a good sign for US politics that an apparent second assassination attempt against the former president and current Republican nominee, Donald Trump, seems to be fading into the media’s background noise as a relatively minor story. In part, this might be because of the particulars of the incident at Trump’s Palm Beach golf club in Florida, not far from his resort home at Mar-a-Lago.For one thing, the suspect never fired a shot, though he was armed with an AK-47-style assault rifle with the serial number scratched off; having hidden in the bushes on the golf course for an estimated 12 hours, apparently waiting for Trump to appear, the would-be shooter was apprehended by Secret Service agents, who shot at him and missed.That makes this apparent second attempt somewhat less severe than the first, fewer than three months ago, at a Trump rally outside Pittsburgh, where a sniper on a nearby roof not only managed to fire shots at Trump, but was able to graze the former president’s ear.This time, the former president was never in real danger; he was hundreds of yards away at the time, and the Secret Service said on Monday that the alleged gunman did not have Trump in his sights. The golf course seems to have been relatively empty at the time; there have been no reports of other players being endangered by the plot. Unlike at most of Trump’s public outings, there were no crowds – which means that fewer people were at risk. And unlike most of Trump’s public outings, there were also no cameras – which means that his campaign will have a harder time spinning the incident into pro-Trump propaganda.In fact, no one seems to have been shot at all in Palm Beach. Though the Pittsburgh shooting injured several and claimed the life of one of Trump’s rally-goers, Corey Comperatore, a Butler county resident, in the Palm Beach shooting, not even the alleged assailant himself was harmed: though he fled the scene, he was captured later in a traffic stop as he headed north. That means he may well become one of those rare historical creatures: the would-be presidential assassin who lives long enough to stand trial. For that much, we can all breathe a sigh of relief: despite the gunshots that were fired and the powerful weapons that the suspect possessed, no one was hurt.Another reason why the apparent second attempt on Trump’s life this cycle may not make much of a dent in the media ecosystem is because the suspect appears recognizably unstable, rendering the case one of the US’s de rigueur tragedies in which profound mental illness mixes with easy access to guns. It’s true that Ryan Wesley Routh, the alleged gunman, did seem to have some degree of political agenda: he appears, oddly enough, to be a partisan of the Ukraine war effort. But Ruth’s long, checkered past and odd personal statements make it seem unlikely that his political motives were coherent.They were certainly not partisan. Routh voted for Trump in 2016 and has made public statements supporting other candidates since, seeming to mostly believe in a hawkish foreign policy. He has voiced support for Nikki Haley, for example; he seems to have hoped, during 2024’s abortive Republican primary, that she would run for vice-president on a ticket topped by the businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. His decades-long criminal record includes arrests for writing bad checks, a hit and run, resisting arrest, a concealed weapons violation and possession of a weapon of mass destruction – with that last charge, a felony, stemming from an incident in which he barricaded himself inside a house with an automatic weapon.Perhaps not the most lucid political thinker, Routh nevertheless followed his passion to Ukraine in recent years, when he was interviewed by several news outlets reporting on a minor trend of Americans traveling to eastern Europe to fight against the Russian invasion. He told the New York Times back in 2022 about a cockamamie scheme he cooked up there, in which Afghans who had previously fought the Taliban would be transported, somehow at his own direction, to Ukraine, to join the anti-Russian cause. The Times reporter who interviewed Routh said that at the time that he thought the man seemed out of his depth. That might be an understatement.Routh, then, does not appear to be a leftwing extremist or Democratic partisan, motivated by fear of what Trump would do to the country. He seems, rather, like an addled man, perhaps not entirely in possession of his own mind, with a penchant for violence and persistent fantasies of Rambo-like military heroism. Among the devices that the Secret Service discovered at the suspect’s hiding spot in the bushes at the Palm Beach golf course was a GoPro: whatever he imagined he was going to do there, it seems that he intended to stream it.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn another country, Routh’s thin political understandings and ardent delusions of grandeur would make him marginal, an outcast or perhaps someone seen as in need of help. In ours, he is a public danger. Despite being a felon, Routh was able to get himself a weapon of war; despite having been violent and dangerous to others in the past, he was still free, without any apparent restraints on his movement or psychiatric care. We are all very lucky that it wasn’t worse.But living in the US, now, means taking a risk that the combination of a man’s grievance and insanity will collide with our dangerously lax gun laws in a way that will cost you your life. Immigrant Americans may be massacred in a Walmart by nativist scaremongers for having the temerity to come to this country. Black Americans may be gunned down in a grocery store by a white supremacist. Women may be slaughtered by husbands, boyfriends or exes who decide that their inability to control them is an insult that demands the sacrifice of their lives. These, too, are the product of our polarized, hateful and hierarchical culture, and yet these incidents do not get described as “political violence”. And yet our politics has become highly violent, and usually, the rich and famous are not its primary targets. Every American risks getting shot in public. Most of us do not get to face that risk with Secret Service protection.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Calls mount for more Trump security after apparent assassination attempt at golf club

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      Demands were mounting on Sunday for Donald Trump to receive protections on a level with a sitting president after a would-be assassin was narrowly foiled from carrying out what the FBI is investigating as an attempt on the life of the Republican nominee, the second against him in as many months.Joe Biden on Monday said he believed the Secret Service – which has been plagued by staff shortages – needed more resources.The president said “thank God” Trump was OK, before adding: “One thing I want to make clear [is] the Secret Service needs more help. I think Congress should respond to their needs.“I think they need some more personnel.”Biden’s comments came as an internal report into the operational failures that preceded the earlier assassination attempt against Trump – in July – is expected to detail lapses in communication between the former president’s protective detail and local law enforcement charged with securing the perimeter around political rallies.A suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, a pro-Ukraine activist from Hawaii who is registered to vote in North Carolina, was detained after a Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of an AK-47-style rifle poking through a chain link fence on the outskirts of Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach.The former president is estimated to have been 300 to 500 yards away when a Secret Service agent saw the suspect and fired at him.The suspect fled and was later arrested speeding north from Palm Beach in his car.Republicans were the first to call for additional security, which has already been improved since Trump was targeted at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, by Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was killed by a Secret Service sniper. The 20-year-old gunman in the earlier case, whose motives appeared to be opportunistic, shot the president in the ear while killing one bystander and wounding two others.The former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the Secret Service should change its policy and treat Trump like he is an incumbent with a larger protective perimeter around him.“Stop being bureaucratic,” he said on X. “Do what’s necessary.”In a statement on Sunday, Joe Biden said he had ordered the federal government to continue ensuring the “Secret Service has every resource, capability and protective measure necessary to ensure the former president’s continued safety”. But the president’s statement did little to quell demands for more protections for Trump as he runs against Kamala Harris in the 5 November election.The New York Republican congresswoman Claudia Tenney said it was inexplicable that there had apparently been a second attempted assassination, remarking: “President Trump needs the same, if not more, Secret Service protection than a sitting president.”The US House majority leader, Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, said that the Secret Service must up their level of protection of him to their full capabilities – including “expanding the perimeter”.The congressman Nick Langworthy, another New York Republican, said that recurring political violence targeting Trump “is unacceptable and deeply un-American”.“This is not who we are as a nation, and it cannot be tolerated under any circumstances,” Langworthy said.Such reactions largely came after the West Palm Beach sheriff, Ric Bradshaw – whose jurisdiction includes Trump’s golf course – said security would have been tighter if the former president was in office.But the debate over what level of security Trump should receive has clashed with protocol and demands on the Secret Service’s $3bn budget. About $1.2bn is allocated to protective services for the sitting president and his family.But where the sitting president’s detail is supported by the military, Trump is assigned a far lighter detail tasked to work with local law enforcement.Before the Butler shooting, the Secret Service repeatedly denied requests for additional resources and personnel sought by Trump’s security detail. Denials of those requests often cited staff shortages, leading to tensions between Trump advisers and the agency.Failures of communication between the Secret Service and local law enforcement about closing off lines of sight contributed to Trump’s vulnerability in Butler, an internal Secret Service investigation reportedly showed.After that assassination attempt, security around Trump was said to have increased. The homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, in July said that his agency, which includes the Secret Service, was beefing up protection for Trump.“The Secret Service enhanced former president Trump’s protection based on the evolving nature of threats to the former president,” Mayorkas said at a White House briefing.But Trump’s frequent golf games have long been viewed as challenging because golf courses are open areas and often close to roads. He owns courses in Florida, New York, New Jersey and Scotland, as well as numerous other locations.Early on Monday, Trump thanked his security detail for protecting him.“It was certainly an interesting day!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. He thanked the Secret Service and local law enforcement “for the incredible job done today at Trump International in keeping me, as the 45th President of the United States, and the Republican Nominee in the upcoming Presidential Election, SAFE”.Harris commended the Secret Service on Sunday, too, and described herself as “thankful” that her opponent in the presidential race was safe. The vice-president also condemned political violence while reiterating Biden’s pledge to “ensure the Secret Service has every resource” necessary to protect Trump. More

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      Second Trump assassination attempt highlights ‘dangerous times’ for US

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      A US Secret Service spokesperson summed up an extraordinary afternoon at the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach, Florida, in five chilling words: “We live in dangerous times.”The spokesperson made his assessment at a press conference on Sunday afternoon, just hours after an individual had been spotted with an AK-47-style semi-automatic rifle just a few hundred yards from where Donald Trump was playing golf.The incident is being treated by the FBI as the second attempted assassination on the former president in as many months. Pictures released by law enforcement appeared to show a rudimentary sniper’s nest and pointed security questions are sure to be asked about how someone was able to get so close to Trump.Details released at the press conference underlined how close Trump came to being shot at – yet again – so soon after a shooter grazed his ear at a rally in Butler county, Pennsylvania, on 13 July. Asked by reporters how far away the gunman spotted on Sunday was to his apparent target, the sheriff of West Palm Beach, Ric Bradshaw, replied: “Probably between 300 and 500 yards – but with a rifle and scope like that, that’s not a lot of distance.”The security emergency began at 1.30pm on Sunday when the Secret Service reported that shots had been fired. At the time, Trump was golfing with his friend and real estate Republican mega-donor Steve Witkoff between the 5th and 6th holes of the 18-hole course.Bradshaw explained that the area was surrounded by dense shrubbery – a security agency’s waking nightmare – allowing the suspected would-be assassin to place himself on the edge of the course largely out of sight. Federal agents divulged that in addition to his AK-47-style rifle and scope, the suspect had two backpacks as well as a GoPro filming device, which Bradshaw said indicated that he intended to record his actions.In the immediate aftermath of the incident, the initial analysis suggested a story of two conflicting narratives.The first narrative focused on how exposed Trump was, even after security had been ramped up after the Butler incident, and how easy it appeared to have been for a heavily armed individual to gain entrance to the golf course and hide there ensconced in the bushes.As Bradshaw put it, had Trump been a sitting president at the time he would never have been allowed by the Secret Service to play golf in such an open environment. But “he is not the sitting president, and so we are limited to what the Secret Service deems possible”.The second narrative is more positive. Unlike the attempted assassination on Trump in Butler county, in which the Secret Service has faced serious questions about its competence leading to the resignation of its then director, Kimberly Cheatle, Sunday’s incident appears to paint the agency in a much rosier light.The suspected gunman was spotted by a Secret Service agent who was acting as forward guard, going ahead of Trump by a hole or two to stake out potential threats. Despite the thick greenery flanking the course, the agent caught sight of a rifle barrel peeking through and engaged the suspect, firing four to six rounds of ammunition.“The Secret Service did exactly what they were supposed to do, and their agent did a fantastic job,” Bradshaw said.From there, the apprehension of the suspect also went like clockwork. As he was being fired upon, the suspect dropped the rifle and fled through the bushes, jumping into a black Nissan that he had presumably left strategically located for a fast getaway. Also remarkably in the circumstances, a passerby saw him flee and had the wits to take a photograph of the vehicle including its license plate.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSuch is the power of surveillance technology in Florida that within minutes the number plate was being run through the state’s license plate readers. The escaping suspect was quickly tracked to the I-95 highway and promptly detained at gunpoint.As William Snyder, sheriff of neighboring Martin county where the arrest was made, noted, the suspect was unarmed and appeared “relatively calm, he was not displaying a lot of emotion”.The exemplary way in which federal and local law enforcement worked together to prevent what could have been a catastrophic event, followed by the consummate apprehension of the suspect, will take a lot of heat out of the situation as the inevitable blame game gets under way. But that other initial narrative also glares out and will demand answers.How, after Trump came so close to being shot in Pennsylvania, was it possible for him to be out playing golf in a setting that appears to have been impossible to secure? What is happening in a country with as painful a history of successful assassinations as America’s when it sees a former president targeted not once but twice in such short order?A beady-eyed Secret Service agent spared the US a potentially unconscionable disaster. Is that security enough?“The threat level is high,” said the Secret Service spokesperson. “We live in dangerous times.” More

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      Backlash for JD Vance after calling school shooting a ‘fact of life’

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      America’s ideological split over gun control has spilled over into the presidential campaign after JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, voiced regret that school shootings had “become a fact of life” in the US.Vance’s comments – in the wake of the latest deadly shooting, at Apalachee high school in Georgia – ignited a political row after Democrats depicted them as evidence of a lack of empathy while Republicans claimed the remarks had been taken out of context.Vance called for more security measures in schools without mentioning gun control, while Democrats including Kamala Harris and the US president, Joe Biden, want a ban on assault-style rifles, more background checks and other gun safety action.Asked about the Georgia shooting while speaking at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona, on Thursday evening, Vance said: “I don’t like this. I don’t like to admit this. I don’t like that this is a fact of life. But if you are a psycho and you want to make headlines, you realise that our schools are soft targets.”The boy who is charged in the Georgia school shooting is 14 years old.Vance continued: “We’ve got to bolster security at our schools so that a person who walks through the front door … and wants to kill a bunch of children – they’re not able to. As a parent, do I want my kids’ school to have additional security? No, of course I don’t. But that is increasingly the reality that we live in.”The remarks, which were prefaced by an attack on the pro-gun control stance of Harris, the Democratic nominee for president in this November’s election, were immediately seized on by the Harris campaign.“School shootings are not just a fact of life,” the Democratic nominee posted on X (formerly Twitter), linking to footage of Vance’s comments.“It doesn’t have to be this way. We can take action to protect our children – and we will.”Vance, Donald Trump’s running mate, had accused Harris of wanting to “take law-abiding citizens’ guns away from them”.Republicans and Democrats have become increasingly polarised on gun control, with one party standing on the issue of gun owners’ rights and the other identifying with efforts to bring stricter controls.But the row between the two presidential tickets was overshadowed by Republican anger at the Associated Press, which had been accused of misrepresenting Vance’s comments in a post on X.“JD VANCE says school shootings are a ‘fact of life,’ calls for better security,” read the post. It was subsequently taken down and replaced with a more nuanced version providing greater explanation.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“JD Vance says he laments that school shootings are a ‘fact of life’ and says the US needs to harden security to prevent more carnage like the shooting this week that left four dead in Georgia,” the second iteration read. A second follow-up post said: “This post replaces an earlier post that was deleted to add context to the partial quote from Vance.”The posts were greeted with derision on X, with the platform’s owner, Elon Musk, writing: “AP stand for Associated Propaganda.”On Thursday night, Tim Walz, the governor or Minnesota and Harris’s running mate on the Democratic ticket, posted to X, Elon Musk’s social media platform formerly called Twitter, a clip of Vance’s speech, and commented: “This is pathetic. We can’t quit on our kids – they deserve better.”Trump, responding to a question on the Georgia shootings at a Fox News town hall meeting from the Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday, said: “It’s a sick and angry world for a lot of reasons and we’re going to make it better, and we’re going to heal our world.”The former president has been accused of showing a lack of sympathy after previous shooting episodes. In response to a deadly assault in Perry, Iowa, last January that killed three people, he said: “It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here. But we have to get over it – we have to move forward.”A 14-year-old suspect, Colt Gray, is in police custody and is expected to be tried on four counts of murder over Wednesday’s shooting in Georgia, which left two pupils and two teachers dead. The authorities have pressed second-degree murder charges against his father, Colin Gray, for allowing his son to posses the gun. More

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      Kyle Rittenhouse reverses course on not endorsing Trump after online pile-on

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      Acquitted killer Kyle Rittenhouse announced he would not be supporting Donald Trump’s attempt to return to the White House – but ultimately ended up politically endorsing him anyway after being inundated with vitriolic messages from the former president’s followers.The flip-flop by Rittenhouse – who has fashioned himself as a gun rights activist after shooting two people to death in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during racial justice protests there in 2020 – followed an initial pledge to write in former congressman Ron Paul as his choice on November’s presidential election ballot.In a video posted on the social media platform X, Rittenhouse argued that Trump had a “bad” record with respect to gun rights and explained he would instead back Paul.The 21-year-old then spent the next several hours grappling with ire directed at him by proponents of Trump’s “Make America great again” (Maga) movement, who embraced Rittenhouse as a hero after the shootings in Kenosha and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for his successful criminal defense. Among other insults, they taunted him with prison rape jokes and accused him of betraying Trump less than three years after the Republican met with him at his Mar-a-Lago resort and declared Rittenhouse “really a nice young man”.One of the more typical comments responding to Rittenhouse’s temporary endorsement of Paul was from political commentator Joey Mannarino, who wrote on X: “If not for Maga, you would be rotting in a prison bending over for Bubba … Fuck you and the horse you rode in on!”Another X user added: “I wish they would’ve let you go to prison so you could be the bitch you actually are.”By Friday afternoon, Rittenhouse had gone back on X and wrote that he was “100% behind Donald Trump and [would] encourage every gun owner to join me in helping send him back to the White House”.“Over the past 12 hours, I’ve had a series of productive conversations with members of the Trump’s team, and I am confident he will be the strong ally gun owners need to defend our … rights,” Rittenhouse also said. “My comments made last night were ill-informed and unproductive.”Some commentators met the quick about-face with equally swift mockery.“You stand for absolutely nothing and have zero backbone,” read one reply. Another said: “This time try not to murder anyone while you’re backpedaling.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRittenhouse was 17 when he traveled 20 miles from his home in Antioch, Illinois, as protests erupted after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, who is Black.Roaming Kenosha with other armed men claiming to be self-appointed security guards, Rittenhouse used a rifle to fatally shoot 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, then 26. He also injured Gage Grosskreutz, then 27, and was charged with five felonies, including first-degree intentional homicide.Rittenhouse contended to the jury which heard his case that he carried out the shootings in self-defense and had acted justifiably. At the end of a tumultuous trial, jurors found him not guilty of all charges against him, a verdict hailed by far-right politicians and pundits but decried by civil rights activists. More

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      Hundreds mourn Pennsylvania man killed in Trump assassination attempt

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      Hundreds of people who gathered to remember the former fire chief fatally shot at a weekend rally for former president Donald Trump were urged to find “unity” as the area in rural Pennsylvania sought to recover from the assassination attempt.Wednesday’s public event was the first of two to memorialize and celebrate Corey Comperatore’s life. The second, a visitation for friends, was planned for Thursday at Laube Hall in Freeport.Outside the Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, where the vigil was held for Comperatore, a sign read “Rest in Peace Corey, Thank You For Your Service” with the logo of his fire company.On the rural road to the auto racing track – lined with cornfields, churches and industrial plants – a sign outside a local credit union read: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the Comperatore family.”View image in fullscreenComperatore, 50, had worked as a project and tooling engineer, was an army reservist and had spent many years as a volunteer firefighter after serving as chief, according to his obituary.He died on Saturday during the attempt on Trump’s life at the rally in Butler. Comperatore spent the final moments of his life shielding his wife and daughter from gunfire, officials said.A statement issued on Thursday by Comperatore’s family described him as “our beloved father and husband, and a friend to so many throughout the Butler region”.“Our family is finding comfort and peace through the heartfelt messages of encouragement from people around the world, through the support of our church and community, and most of all through the strength of God,” the statement said.Vigil organizer Kelly McCollough told the crowd on Wednesday that the event was not political in nature, adding that there was no room for hate or personal opinions other than an outpouring of support for the Comperatore family.“Tonight is about unity,” McCollough said. “We need each other. We need to feel love. We need to feel safe. We need clarity in this chaos. We need strength. We need healing.”Dan Ritter, who gave a eulogy, said he bought Comperatore’s childhood home in 1993, sparking a friendship that grew with their shared values of family, Christian faith and politics.“Corey loved his family and was always spending time with them,” Ritter said. “This past Saturday was supposed to be one of those days for him. He did what a good father would do. He protected those he loved. He’s a true hero for us all.”Jeff Lowers of the Freeport fire department trained with Comperatore and said at the vigil that he always had a smile on his face.Afterward, Heidi Powell, a family friend, read remarks from Comperatore’s high school economics teacher, who could not attend the vigil.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“What made Corey truly extraordinary was his indomitable spirit, unyielding courage, his unflappable optimism,” the teacher, Mark Wyant, wrote.Comperatore’s pastor, Jonathan Fehl of the Cabot Methodist church, said the family “has been humbled by the way this community has rallied around them”, and by the support they have received from people around the world.The vigil concluded with people in the crowd lighting candles and raising cellphones, glow sticks and lighters as Comperatore’s favorite song – I Can Only Imagine, by the Christian rock band MercyMe – played while pictures of him and his family were shown on a screen.Two other people were injured at the rally: David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington, and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township. As of Wednesday night, both had been upgraded to serious but stable condition, according to a spokesperson with Allegheny Health Network.Joseph Feldman, an attorney for Copenhaver, said on Wednesday that he had spoken with Copenhaver by phone.“He seems to be in good spirits, but he also understands the gravity of the situation,” Feldman said. “And he’s deeply saddened about what has occurred, and he’s deeply sympathetic” to the other victims and their families.Feldman said Copenhaver suffered “life-altering injuries”, declining to go into detail. He said Copenhaver’s priority is to “keep up with the medical treatment he’s receiving and hopefully be released at some point”.In a statement, Dutch’s family thanked the “greater western Pennsylvania community and countless others across the country and world” for the incredible outpouring of prayers and well wishes.Trump suffered an ear injury but was not seriously hurt and has been participating this week in the Republican national convention in Milwaukee. More

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      Unfortunately, gun violence – against Trump or anyone else – is all too American | Rebecca Solnit

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      “Political violence is unacceptable and has no place in this country,” said Arizona’s governor, Katie Hobbs, and “political violence has absolutely no place in this country”, insisted California congresswoman Barbara Lee, while President Joe Biden stated, “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America.”“As one whose family has been the victim of political violence, I know firsthand that political violence of any kind has no place in our society,” affirmed Nancy Pelosi, referencing the attacker who broke into her home in 2022 to kidnap her and, in her absence, seriously injured her husband. “There is no place for political violence in this country, period,” said Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who was the target of a kidnapping plot by far-right militiamen in 2020 who intended to make her the centerpiece of a show trial.Dozens of others reached for versions of this “no place in America” declaration, and I wondered if “no place” meant something like when Jesus was born in a stable because, according to the Gospel of Luke, “there was no place for them in the inn.” That is, the United States is full to overflowing of violence of many kinds and afflicted with many enthusiasts for violence and the weapons with which it is most often fatally inflicted.All this came in the wake of an event in Pennsylvania in which the ear of an elderly man was grazed by a bullet fired by a young man with a semi-automatic weapon. One bystander died of a bullet to the head and two others were seriously injured. Later that night four people were killed in a nightclub in Birmingham, Alabama, and nine others wounded by another gunman. Four more people were killed in a home in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in yet another shooting Sunday, and three people were shot in Charleston, South Carolina, non-fatally. None of them were running for president, so these other stories weren’t major news.You could drop in dozens of local news stories of shootings like that any weekend in this country over the past decade years, if it wasn’t the kind of week in which the carnage was so immense it became a major news story, as when an 18-year-old gunman murdered 19 elementary-school children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, in May of 2022, while heavily armed police stood by. Every day, on average, 327 Americans are shot and 117 die of the injuries, according to one gun-control-advocacy site.On Wednesday a white policeman shot and killed a Black shoplifter reportedly suffering from mental health issues in Charlotte, North Carolina. The United States is drenched in violence, riddled with violence, rotten with violence. There is room for violence in this country founded on slavery and the genocide and dispossession of Native Americans. There has always been epidemic violence against women in this country. But a lot of recent violence has been cultivated as an asset for rightwing politicians and a cash crop for gun manufacturers.The day the Black shoplifter died, I spoke at a campaign launch for a first time San Francisco candidate. So did the activist Cleve Jones, who talked about Harvey Milk. In the late 1970s Jones was a young intern for and friend of Milk, the out gay politician whose election to San Francisco’s board of supervisors was a watershed moment in queer history. On the morning of 27 November 1978, he heard that Milk’s ally, Mayor George Moscone, had been shot and rushed to City Hall, where he saw thensupervisor Dianne Feinstein rush past him, one sleeve and hand stained with blood. It was Milk’s blood from her attempt to take his pulse when she found him shot, and moments later he saw his friend lying dead of five bullets fired at close range. Along with the mayor, he had been assassinated by a disgruntled former supervisor, the rightwinger and ex-cop Dan White.Dianne Feinstein became mayor, then ran for the US senate, and after winning she introduced the 1994 federal assault rifle ban that passed but which Republicans allowed to lapse a decade later. Democrats have long tried to institute gun control laws; Republicans have largely tried to prevent or overturn them. In Pennsylvania, where a 20-year-old man climbed onto a roof Saturday, anyone over 18 can buy a semi-automatic like the one he wielded without a waiting period, and private sales don’t require background checks. It has in recent years become an open-carry state, as have the majority of states in this country.One person pulled the trigger; thousands of elected officials, lobbyists, and gun industry employees worked to make it possible for him to do so. To make more room for violence in America.The elderly man – and yeah, of course I’m talking about Donald Trump – whose ear was grazed had instigated a violent assault on Congress in which hundreds of defenders of the institution and process of democracy were injured, sprayed with bear mace, stabbed with American flags, crushed in a door, battered with barricades, and he has long encouraged political violence.His associate in trying to steal the 2020 election, Rudy Giuliani, was found liable for spreading lies that encouraged Trump supporters to target two Black women, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, who had been ordinary Georgia election workers. The resultant threats, racial slurs, and menacing appearances that forced Freeman to sell her home and both to go into hiding. A jury awarded them $148m in compensatory and punitive damages late last year.“How death threats get Republicans to fall in line behind Trump” was the headline of a report earlier this year, and a 2020 report by ABC News “identified at least 54 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault.” There is room for violence in America. Some politicians have long tried to make more room for it. One of them escaped a bullet on Saturday. A lot of other Americans have not been so lucky.

      Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility More