Inside The Assassination Attempts Against Donald Trump

May 2024 · 2 minute read

Before that forklift incident, though, there was a clear attempt on Donald Trump's life with a firearm while the 45th U.S. president was still a candidate and the presumptive GOP nominee. At a 2016 campaign rally in Las Vegas, British national Michael Steven Sandford tried to snatch a firearm from a police officer. He later said he intended to shoot and kill Trump and expected he would be shot and killed by law enforcement as a result, The New York Times reported. Sandford was apprehended and rushed from the scene. He later pleaded guilty on three charges and was sentenced to one year in prison in the U.S. before returning to the U.K., per AP.

Trump faced another unsettling incident in November of that same year, when he visited Reno for a campaign event — but it turned out to be nothing more than an unfortunate miscommunication involving a man named Austyn Crites, who was politically opposed to Trump. While Crites held a sign, "Republicans Against Trump," someone in the crowd yelled "gun," which led to a bit of chaos and Trump being yanked off the event stage by Secret Service, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported. Crites was apprehended and questioned, with the Secret Service confirming he was unarmed and no weapon was found, per CNN. Crites was released, and although some in Trump's circle tried to paint the situation as an "assassination attempt," it clearly wasn't the case.

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