In the final weeks of the election cycle, everything is going a bit haywire, especially everything in and around the Trump campaign. This has been made worse by Donald Trump’s decision to campaign in “blue states” which has no chance of winning. On Saturday, Trump was in California’s Coachella Valley. Trump had a rally in which he was once again placed inside a bulletproof, plexiglass cage, much like the late, great Hannibal Lector. After his speech, Trump made a swift exit, leaving hundreds of his cult members stranded in the desert with no transportation. He was also heckled at one point during his speech and he encouraged his supporters to violently attack the female heckler. But I digress… before the Coachella rally even began, a man was arrested outside the rally. The man had an SUV full of loaded weapons and lots of fake IDs. The sheriff thinks they thwarted another assassination attempt:
A man with a loaded weapon was arrested on Saturday, Oct. 12, outside of Donald Trump’s rally in California’s Coachella Valley, with officials believing they thwarted another assassination attempt on him. During a press conference on Sunday, Oct. 13, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco addressed the incident in Coachella, telling reporters, “I truly do believe we prevented another assassination attempt.”
According to a police report from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office obtained by PEOPLE, 49-year-old Las Vegas resident Vem Miller was contacted after his black SUV was found by deputies onsite at a checkpoint at the intersection of Avenue 52 and Celebration Drive.
As he entered the outside perimeter of the rally, Miller had credentials that indicated he belonged at the rally with a VIP pass and claimed to be a member of the press. However, “irregularities” popped up as he made his way into the inside perimeter. Miller was “found to be illegally in possession of a shotgun, a loaded handgun, and a high-capacity magazine.” Multiple passports and multiple IDs with different names were also found in his vehicle, which was “in disarray,” Bianco detailed. Additionally, his vehicle was unregistered.
Miller was taken into custody without incident and was booked at the John J. Benoit Detention Center in Indio for possession of a loaded firearm and possession of a high-capacity magazine. The sheriff’s office noted that the incident “did not impact the safety of former President Trump or attendees of the event” and the incident occurred an hour before the rally was set to begin.
A guy showing up to a MAGA rally with an SUV full of weapons and fake IDs sounds like a case of “fork found in kitchen” to me – like, those are his supporters. The guy who got arrested told local outlets that this wasn’t an assassination attempt, he was just attending the rally, like everybody else.
A Las Vegas man was arrested with guns and fake I.D.s about a quarter mile from former President Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Coachella Valley, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said Sunday. But while the sheriff called the arrest a thwarted assassination attempt, the man told a reporter he is 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.
Deputies assigned to Trump’s rally said the driver, Vem Miller, rolled up in a black SUV to a checkpoint at the intersection of Avenue 52 and Celebration Drive around 5 p.m. on Saturday. He was found to be in illegal possession of a shotgun, loaded handgun, and a high-capacity magazine, Bianco said. He added that Miller’s car had a fake license plate and was unregistered.
Miller, in an interview with Southern California News Group on Sunday, said he was “shocked” that he was arrested and accused of trying to harm Trump, who he supports.
“These accusations are complete bull—t,” Miller said. “I’m an artist, I’m the last person that would cause any violence and harm to anybody.”
A Trump caucus captain, Miller said he received a special invitation to the Coachella Valley rally from the head of Clark County’s Republican Party. Donning a Trump shirt and hat, the 49-year-old said he reached a checkpoint prior to entering the event parking lot and told a deputy he was lawfully carrying firearms in his trunk – as a courtesy. He was asked to pull over and step out of the car before he was handcuffed and had his vehicle “ransacked” after a deputy said he wanted to retrieve the gun’s serial numbers to confirm they were lawfully purchased.
Miller said he bought the firearms in 2022 for protection after he started receiving death threats. He had never fired them and said he was unfamiliar with the difference between Nevada and California’s gun laws. He also denied presenting a press pass at the checkpoint and said he only had a ‘special entry pass.’
If you scratch the surface of all of these “assassination attempts,” it absolutely appears as if all of the would-be shooters are registered Republicans with a history of supporting Donald Trump and a history of being armed to the teeth. Anyway…
Photos courtesy of Getty, Cover Images.