A man wearing body armor and carrying a weapon was arrested on Oct. 17 outside President Donald Trump’s rally in Dallas.
Police officers assigned to perform security at the American Airlines Center “were made aware of” the man around 6:30 p.m., reported CBS DFW. Officers found the man and discovered he was armed.
The man had a license to carry the weapon but officers still arrested the man and transported him to a nearby hospital for evaluation.
Footage from local broadcasters showed a white male with short hair, wearing a black t-shirt, grey pants, and carrying a red and black backpack.
According to KXAS, the man was wearing a helmet and a vest and officers confiscated a breathing mask and an aerosol can in addition to the firearm.
A number of people have been arrested at or outside Trump rallies since he announced his run for office.
Police in New Hampshire arrested 23-year-old Tyler McMullen in 2015. McMullen told a local outlet he was seeking a job from Trump. Security at the venue told police there was a man fighting with them. McMullen was arrested and charged with one count of disorderly conduct and two counts of assault.
In March 2016, Secret Service agents surrounded Trump at a rally in Ohio as a man attempted to rush the stage.
That man, later identified as Thomas DiMassimo, was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and inducing panic. DiMassimo later said he wanted to take the podium away from Trump and said he was a supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
“I was thinking that I could get up on stage and take his podium away from him and take his mic away from him and send a message to all people out in the country who wouldn’t consider themselves racist, who wouldn’t consider themselves approving of what type of violence Donald Trump is allowing in his rallies, and send them a message that we can be strong, that we can find our strength and we can stand up against Donald Trump and against this new wave he’s ushering in of truly just violent white supremacist ideas,” DiMassimo told CNN.
In another instance, a man identified as Michael Steven Sandford planned to grab a gun from a police officer and use it to kill Trump at a Las Vegas rally in 2016, authorities said. Sandford told Secret Service agents he intended to “shoot and kill Trump” and said the president “needs to die,” accusing him of being a “racist.”
Sandford, a 20-year-old British national, pleaded guilty to one count of being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm and one count of impeding and disrupting the orderly conduct of government business and official functions, reported the Las Vegas Review-Journal. In exchange, another charge was dropped.
Sanford was sentenced to one year and one day in prison. He originally faced up to 30 years in jail.
“I feel so bad about what I did,” Sandford told the judge. “I just feel terrible.” His public defender said in a memo that Sandford was suicidal and was hyperventilating from “hallucinations of aliens wanting to kill him.”
Sanford, who was illegally in the United States after overstaying his tourist visa, was deported after serving his sentence.
