Category: Violence

Montana man believed he was acting on Trump’s orders in attacking boy for wearing hat during national anthem

The attorney for a 39-year-old man charged with assaulting a child who didn’t take his hat off for the national anthem says his client, compromised by a traumatic brain injury, believes he was acting on an order from President Donald Trump. 

Superior resident Curt Brockway was charged Monday with felony assault on a minor. His defense attorney, Lance Jasper, told the Missoulian Wednesday the president’s “rhetoric” contributed to the U.S. Army veteran’s disposition when he choke-slammed a 13-year-old, fracturing his skull, at the Mineral County fairgrounds on Aug. 3.

“His commander in chief is telling people that if they kneel, they should be fired, or if they burn a flag, they should be punished,” Jasper said. “He certainly didn’t understand it was a crime.”

A request to the White House for comment was not returned. Mineral County Attorney Ellen Donohue’s office said she was unavailable for comment Wednesday afternoon. 

Jasper said he’s gotten a handful of hateful voicemails at his office since taking Brockway’s case, but that Brockway’s family has received “hundreds” of death threats in the days since the 13-year-old boy was flown to Spokane by emergency flight for treatment. KPAX reported the boy is back home after being released from the hospital; no further information has been released on his condition.

Brockway was apprehended at the Superior fairgrounds on Saturday after several people saw the alleged assault. According to charging documents filed in Mineral County District Court on Tuesday, Brockway told Deputy Micah Allard the national anthem was playing before the rodeo got underway, and he noticed a young teenager still wearing his hat. Brockway told the deputy he asked the youth to remove his hat because it was disrespectful, to which the youth responded by saying “(expletive) you.”

Charging documents indicate Brockway told the deputy he grabbed the boy by the throat, lifted him into the air and slammed the boy on the ground. Taylor Hennick, who was at the fair,told the Missoulian earlier this week that Brockway defended his action as people closed in on him by saying the boy had been disrespectful. Deputies later learned the boy had suffered a concussion and a fractured skull.

Jasper said Wednesday that he will seek a mental health evaluation for his client before determining how to proceed further in the defense. 

Brockway sustained a traumatic brain injury in a vehicle crash in the winter of 2000, Jasper said. He was on active military duty at Fort Lewis, Washington, at the time, and was driving home to visit family for the holidays, Jasper said. He was honorably discharged from the military due to disability, according to Jasper.

He said Brockway’s military background has been central to his identity since suffering the injury to his frontal lobe, which controls cognitive functions like judgement and problem solving.

Couple that injury, Jasper argues, with the president’s calls to weed out those who have protested the national anthem or criticized the nation, and Brockway is no longer thinking for himself but responding to a presidential order.

“Obviously he (Brockway) owes a big portion of accountability for what took place, but it’s certain that there was other things at work here that definitely contributed,” he said.

Trump’s rhetoric has varied in degrees of severity. In 2017, he told an Alabama crowd that he would “love” to see NFL owners punish, even fire, players who knelt during the national anthem. Videos of fans who agreed with the president subsequently posted videos burning their jerseys and memorabilia when teams refused to pull players who protested the anthem. 

But Jasper said Wednesday he believes his client’s condition means he can be “exploited” by such “animosity” from the president.

“Trump never necessarily says go hurt somebody, but the message is absolutely clear,” Jasper said. “I am certain of the fact that (Brockway) was doing what he believed he was told to do, essentially, by the president.”

Jasper plans to deploy that argument. “There is the defense that his mental illness or brain injury that will be raised, along with permission given by the president,” Jasper said. “Whether that passes muster with the court as a viable defense is for a different day.” 

Last year, the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals found Trump did not incite violence at a Louisville, Kentucky, rally in 2016 when he said “get ’em out of here,” followed by “don’t hurt ’em,” as supporters began pushing and shoving protesters at the event.

Brockway’s injury played a role in a 2010 incident in which he was charged with a felony after pulling a gun on a family member when he was coming back from cutting firewood. Jasper, who represented Brockway in that case as well, said the court took Brockway’s brain injury into consideration during sentencing.

District Court Judge John Larson, who will preside over Brockway’s arraignment next week, sentenced Brockway to 10 years of probation in that case. In February, Brockway successfully petitioned for early release from probation after seven years of good behavior, Jasper said.

“Obviously it’s a tragedy whenever someone is injured, especially a young kid, but with my client being a veteran with a traumatic brain injury, it is absolutely fair to say he got caught up in a heightened animosity and a heightened rhetoric that too many people are engaged in,” Jasper said.

“Everyone should learn to dial it down a little bit, from the president to Mineral County.”

Superior is a small town by Montana standards, and Jasper said the Brockway family is “devastated” at the incident.

The boy’s mother did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday afternoon. A GoFundMe account “A Victim of Forced Patriotism Needs Our Help” has been set up to assist the boy’s family with medical expenses.

Brockway’s case was transferred Wednesday from justice court to Mineral County District Court. His arraignment is set for Aug. 14.

[The Missoulian]

Reality

Donald Trump supported Greg Gianforte after he choke-slammed a reporter to the ground.

Donald Trump called athletes protesting the national anthem “sons of bitches” and regularly demonized them.

Donald Trump approves of violence against his critics.

Man arrested after punching anti-Trump protester in Cincinnati

A 29-year-old Georgetown man was led away from U.S. Bank Arena during President Donald Trump’s visit to chants of “Lock him up!” Thursday night after punching an anti-Trump protester.

The brief confrontation was recorded and quickly posted to Facebook. It showed a man, identified by police as 29-year-old Dallas Frazier, climb out of a red pickup truck and repeatedly strike 61-year-old protester Mike Alter in the head, our news partner WCPO-TV in Cincinnati reported.

Alter, who spoke to WCPO, said the protest had been peaceful until Frazier arrived.

Frazier, who was in the pickup’s passenger seat, began shouting at protesters standing on one side of Broadway Street as it drove by. Then, Frazier got out, WCPO reported.

According to police documents, “suspect exited the vehicle, stated ‘you want some,’ then struck the victim multiple times in the face.” He is in the Hamilton County Justice Center and faces an assault charge.

Cincinnati police Lt. Steve Saunders told WCPO that Frazier was the only person arrested Thursday night in relation to the Trump rally. Saunders said he was not aware of any other fights or rally-related incidents requiring police intervention.

[WHIO]

Trump jokes to Putin they should ‘get rid’ of journalists

Donald Trump joked with Vladimir Putin about getting rid of journalists and Russian meddling in US elections when the two leaders met at the G20 summit in Japan.

As they sat for photographs at the start of their first formal meeting in nearly a year, the US president lightheartedly sought common ground with Putin at the expense of the journalists around them in Osaka.

“Get rid of them. Fake news is a great term, isn’t it? You don’t have this problem in Russia but we do,” Trump said.

To which Putin responded, in English: “We also have. It’s the same.”

Twenty-six journalists have been murdered in Russia since Putin first became president, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), many of them investigative reporters scrutinising governmental abuses.

Trump has frequently referred to the press as the “enemy of the people” and in February the CPJ expressed concern about the safety of journalists covering Trump rallies, where they have been the target of derision and abuse from the president and his supporters. It is a year to the day since five Capital Gazette employees were killed in their newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland. The shooting led to the organisation Reporters Without Bordersadding the US to its list of the five deadliest countries for journalism.

It was the first meeting between the two men since a summit in Helsinki last July, and since the publication of a report by the special counsel Robert Mueller, which found Russia had interfered extensively in the 2016 US presidential election, but found insufficient evidence that the Trump campaign had conspired with Moscow.

When journalists asked Trump just before he left for Japan what he would like to talk to Putin about, he told them it was “none of your business”. As they sat alongside each other, a reporter asked whether he was going to tell Putin not to meddle in the 2020 election.

Trump said: “Yes, of course I will,” drawing a laugh from Putin. Then, without looking at Putin, Trump said briskly: “Don’t meddle in the election, please,” and then repeated the phrase with a mock finger wag as Putin and the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, smiled broadly.

Relations between the two countries have been sour for years, worsening after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and backed Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian war. In a recent television interview, Putin said relations between Moscow and Washington were “getting worse and worse”.

Trump has sought better relations with Putin to tackle a host of issues, including his goal to rein in North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. On Friday, he emphasised the positives.

“It’s a great honour to be with President Putin,” Trump said. “We have many things to discuss, including trade and including some disarmament.”

Trump and Putin had been scheduled to meet at the end of November at the last G20 in Buenos Aires, but Trump cancelled the meeting as he flew to Argentina, citing Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian navy ships and sailors. The two spoke informally at the event. The Ukrainian sailors have still not been freed.

“We’ve had great meetings. We’ve had a very, very good relationship,” Trump said on Friday. “And we look forward to spending some very good time together. A lot of very positive things are going to come out of the relationship.”

In May, the two leaders had their first extensive phone conversation in months. Trump said they talked about a new accord to limit nuclear arms that could eventually include China. Russia is under punitive sanctions imposed by the US and the EU and wants them lifted.

Trump’s critics have accused him of being too friendly with Putin and castigated him for failing to publicly confront the Russian leader in Helsinki over Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 election.

In an interview with the Financial Times on Thursday, Putin claimed Trump’s victory in 2016 and the rise of nationalist-populist movements in Europe signalled the death of liberal policies in the west.

“[Liberals] cannot simply dictate anything to anyone just like they have been attempting to do over the recent decades,” he said. “The liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population.”

Trump later held talks with Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. “He is a special man, doing very well, very much loved by the people of Brazil,” Trump said, smiling broadly. For his part, Bolsonaro told the US president: “I have been a great admirer of you for quite some time, even before your election. I support Trump, I support the United States, I support your re-election.”

[The Guardian]

‘Shoot them!’: Trump laughs off a supporter’s demand for violence against migrants

A roar rose up from the crowd of thousands of Trump supporters in Panama City Beach on Wednesday night, as President Trump noted yet again that Border Patrol agents can’t use weapons to deter migrants. “How do you stop these people?” he asked.

“Shoot them!” someone yelled from the crowd, according to reporters on the scene and attendees.

The audience cheered. Supporters seated behind Trump and clad in white baseball caps bearing the letters “USA” laughed and applauded.

“That’s only in the Panhandle you can get away with that statement,” Trump replied, smiling and shaking his head. “Only in the Panhandle.”

Though Trump didn’t explicitly endorse the suggestion to shoot migrants, his joking response raised concerns that he was tacitly encouraging extrajudicial killings and brutality against asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants. The president has long been accused of endorsing acts of violence through his incendiary rhetoric and allusions to the potential for violence at his rallies, a charge that members of his administration deny.

Reached for comment by The Washington Post on Trump’s reaction at the Florida rally, Matt Wolking, deputy communications director for the Trump campaign, pointed to a response he had given to many critics on Twitter. The president, he noted in his tweet, had specifically said that Border Patrol wouldn’t use firearms to stop migrants from entering the country.

The incendiary remark from the crowd came as Trump, standing before roughly 7,000 people who had gathered at an outdoor amphitheater in the hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast town, railed against what he described as an “invasion” of migrants attempting to enter the United States. Often, he claimed, only “two or three” border agents will contend with the arrival of “hundreds and hundreds of people.”

“And don’t forget, we don’t let them and we can’t let them use weapons,” Trump said of the border agents. “We can’t. Other countries do. We can’t. I would never do that. But how do you stop these people?”

The fans seated directly behind Trump wore serious, perturbed frowns, which were quickly replaced by broad grins after the shouted suggestion that the solution involved firearms. Uproarious laughter rippled across the room as audience members whistled and offered a round of applause.

To critics, Trump’s failure to outright condemn the idea of shooting migrants amounted to a “tacit endorsement” of the sentiment. Many pointed out that such rhetoric was especially concerning in light of the fact that an armed militia group, the United Constitutional Patriots, had been searching the borderlands for undocumented migrants and detaining them against their will.

Last month, after the group’s leader, Larry Mitchell Hopkins, was arrested on charges of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition, the FBI said that the 69-year-old claimed militia members were training to assassinate former president Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and prominent Democratic donor George Soros.

One member of that militia had also questioned why the group wasn’t killing migrants, according to a police report first obtained by left-leaning news outlet The Young Turks.

[Washington Post]

Media

Trump Laments Troops at Border Can’t Get ‘Rough’ Because People Would ‘Go Crazy’

During a roundtable in Texas on Wednesday, President Donald Trumplamented that troops on the United States border can’t can’t get a little “rough.”

“You don’t need drones…but if you don’t have a wall it is never going to happen” Trump began.

He then said border people are “fantastic” before insisting he was going to have to call up more military.

Then the president said this: “Our military, don’t forget, can’t act like a military would act because if they got a little rough everybody would go crazy. So our military can’t act like they would normally act — or like, let’s say, another military from another country would act.”

The roundtable was held in San Antonio. Trump was joined by local officials and ranchers. Trump is also set to attend a second fundraiser in Houston on Texas. According to Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel the two fundraisers are expected to raise $6 million.

[Mediaite]

Trump says he’s ‘very proud’ to hear Bolsonaro use the term ‘fake news’

President Trump said Tuesday that he was “very proud” to hear Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro use the term “fake news” during a news conference at the White House.

Trump offered praise for his Brazilian counterpart, who has earned the nickname “Trump of the Tropics” for his similarities to the U.S. leader, during a diatribe against tech companies and broadcast networks. Trump suggested that those two groups are biased against him and other conservatives.

“You look at the networks, you look at the newscasts. I call it fake news,” Trump said. “I’m very proud to hear the president use the term fake news.”

Bolsonaro invoked the term Trump regularly uses to describe unfavorable news coverage during his opening remarks.

“Brazil and the United States stand side-by-side in their efforts to ensure liberties in respect to traditional family lifestyles, respect to God our creator, against the gender ideology or the politically correct attitudes and against fake news,” he said through a translator.

Tuesday’s news conference underscored the similarities and friendly relationship between Trump and Bolsonaro, who took over as president in January. The two men spoke of improving relations between their respective countries, and referenced their closely aligned views.

“I also know that we’re going to have a fantastic working relationship,” Trump said. “We have many views that are similar.”

Bolsonaro later predicted that Trump will win reelection in 2020.

“It’s an internal affair, we will respect whatever the ballots tell us on 2020,” he said through a translator. “But I do believe Donald Trump is going to be reelected.”

[The Hill]

Reality

Bolsonaro promised in his campaign he would shoot political opponents, including the press. Donald Trump is again promoting violence against those who disagree with him.

Trump Deletes Tweet Promoting Breitbart After Interview Derided for Suggesting Violence

President Donald Trump, or more likely his social media team, have deleted a Thursday tweet that linked to Breitbart.com featuring an exclusive interview that had been widely criticized for the promotion of violence.

In the Wednesday interview, Trump seemed to threaten that things will get “very bad” if his supporters in the military, police, and motorcycle clubs decide to start playing “tough.”  The now-deleted tweet was posted at 10:05 PM EDT.

Seeing as the tweet came after news of the mass shooting of Muslims worshiping at a Christchurch, New Zealand mosque that resulted in the deaths of roughly 50 individuals, many commentators saw this particular response as inappropriate.

Given the volume of Trump tweets, it is a relatively uncommon occasion that President Trump deletes a tweet, and most often the reason for deletion is an obvious and sometimes embarrassing typo. But the tweeting of the website — that features a recently published article that ostensibly warns his detractors of Trump supporters getting “tough” — was considered beyond the pale for White House social media monitors (and perhaps even Mr. Trump) and therefore taken down.

So far the White House has not yet commented or given a reason for the deletion of this tweet.

[Mediaite]

Trump suggests that it could get ‘very bad’ if military, police, biker supporters play ‘tough’

President Trump in a new interview suggested that his supporters are tougher than Democrats, and that if they actually play tough things could get “very bad.”

Trump made the comments in the context of an interview with the conservative outlet Breitbart in which he argued that Democrats play a tough political game. 

“You know, the left plays a tougher game, it’s very funny,” Trump said in the interview with Breitbart published on Wednesday. “I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher.”

“I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,” Trump said.

“But the left plays it cuter and tougher. Like with all the nonsense that they do in Congress … with all this invest[igations] — that’s all they want to do is — you know, they do things that are nasty. Republicans never played this.”

In his remarks, Trump traveled down territory he has visited in the past.

During a rally for then-Missouri Senate candidate Josh Hawley (R) in September, Trump said that his opponents “were lucky that we’re peaceful,” The Washington Post noted in a post on his more recent comments.

“Law enforcement, military, construction workers, Bikers for Trump … They travel all over the country …. They’ve been great,” Trump said at the time. “But these are tough people … But they’re peaceful people, and antifa and all — they’d better hope they stay that way.”

The latest remarks were seized upon in some quarters as another example of Trump seeming to offer threats toward his political opponents.

Trump has faced scrutiny in the past for directly calling on his supporters to use violence. He once said at a 2016 rally in Las Vegas that he’d like to punch a protester in the face. 

Trump also encouraged his supporters at another event to “knock the crap” out of any protesters causing trouble. 

“I promise you, I will pay for the legal fees,” Trump said. 

Trump has repeatedly denounced his political opponents during his time in the White House. He has also continually referred to the media as the “enemy of the people.”

The White House Correspondents’ Association in February called on Trump to make it “absolutely clear to his supporters that violence against reporters is unacceptable.”

[The Hill]

Trump Defends Rhetoric After Coast Guard Lt. Arrested for Planned Terror Attacks: ‘I Think My Language is Very Nice’

President Donald Trump was asked about his rhetoric in the wake of a self-described “white nationalist” Coast Guard officer being arrested for planning on carrying out multiple terrorist attacks.

He also had a hit list of prominent congressional Democrats and media personalities, usually those who are heavy critics of Trump.

“It’s a shame. It’s a very sad thing when a thing like that happens. I’ve expressed that. But I’m actually getting a complete briefing in about two hours,” Trump said.

“Do you think you bear any responsibility for monitoring your language,” a reporter asked.

“No, I don’t. I think my language is very nice,” he replied.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked earlier in the day if she thought Trump’s rhetoric helps fuel terror plots against journalists and politicians.

“I certainly don’t think that,” she said. “The president [hasn’t], at any point, has done anything but condemn violence, against journalists or anyone else. In fact, every single time something like this happens, the president is typically one of the first people to condemn the violence and the media is the first people to condemn the president.”

[Mediaite]

A Trump Supporter Attacked Journalists After The President Blasted The Media At His Texas Rally

A man wearing a Make America Great Again hat barreled into the press pit at Trump’s rally in El Paso, Texas, Monday night and started shoving reporters, knocking over their equipment, and yelled “fuck the media,” minutes after the president had lashed out at journalists.

About half way through his lengthy, campaign-style speech, Trump ridiculed the media for “refusing to acknowledge” his administration’s successes, invoking loud boos and jeers from the crowd.

“I guess 93% of the stories are negative. No matter what we do, they figure out a way to make it that,” the president said, rattling off topics, such as North Korea, the economy, and manufacturing, which he feels that the media has unfairly skewed.

As Trump went on touting how his successes, a man in a red MAGA hat suddenly burst toward the group of reporters and photographers who were covering the speech, pushing them over, knocking their cameras and tripods, and repeatedly yelling, “fuck the media.”

“I was trying to tweet and watch the president and all of the sudden the riser started shaking and two tripods in front of me fell on top of one another and then a guy almost fell on me,” Yasmine El-Sabawi, a producer with TRT World, a Turkish news channel, told BuzzFeed News.

A photographer dropped his camera as she and other reporters quickly tried to figure out what was happening.

“Then it set in that someone was here who wasn’t supposed to be here and then you saw the red hat and it sinks in and you get it,” El-Sabawi said.

The attacker “went straight for the BBC camera man,” El-Sabawi added.

Several members of the BBC who were at the rally shared their footage and accounts on Twitter.

In one clip, a BBC camera steadily trained on Trump’s podium suddenly falters and blurs. Eleanor Montague, the outlet’s Washington editor, tweeted that it was because he was “attacked by a Trump supporter.”

“The crowd had been whipped into a frenzy against the media by Trump and other speakers all night,” she wrote.

1 2 3 4 5 6 … 15