New cases of political violence roil U.S. ahead of contentious election

(Reuters) - - In York, Pennsylvania, a man accosted a group of people rallying for Vice President Kamala Harris’ White House campaign, punching a 74-year-old man in the head and calling another man a “n— supporter” as he fled.

In northern Michigan, an assailant enraged by his hatred of Donald Trump used an all-terrain vehicle to run over and injure an 81-year-old man who was putting up a yard sign for the former president’s reelection bid.

The recent attacks were among at least 300 cases of political violence identified by Reuters since Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including at least 51 incidents this year. With just two weeks to go before the Nov. 5 presidential election, the cases are part of the biggest and most sustained increase in U.S. political violence since the 1970s.

Some of the violence has been reported widely, most notably two assassination attempts on Trump, a Republican. Other high-profile incidents include three shootings in recent weeks at a Democratic campaign office for Harris in Arizona.

But Reuters documented scores of other cases on contentious political issues – from election disputes to LGBTQ+ rights and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Incidents ranged from small fights over political signs to more violent brawls and property destruction at rallies. Most of this year's violence wasn't fatal with the exception of two deaths: a spectator killed during July’s attempt on Trump’s life and the shooter.

The pace of cases has remained remarkably consistent since beginning to rise in 2016, around the time of Trump’s first presidential run. In 2021, which included the tumult that followed Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, there were 93 cases of political violence, followed by 79 in 2022, and 76 in 2023.

Political extremism experts warn that the charged atmosphere around the 2024 presidential election has created a highly volatile situation. Trump in particular often uses incendiary rhetoric, threatening to put his political enemies on trial and to deploy the military against the “radical left”, calling them “the enemy within.”

Americans are starting to see violence as “part of the way politics happens,” said Nealin Parker, who heads Common Ground USA, a nonprofit that studies ways to bridge America's political and cultural divides. In the current climate of mistrust, she added, “incidents of violence can metastasize into something bigger.”

Robert Pape, a University of Chicago professor who studies political violence, expressed concern over the prospect of post-election violence in battleground states, where the margin of victory could be a few thousand votes. He likened it to “a wildfire season” with lots of “dry combustible material” and the “potential for lightning strikes.”

Trump himself has declined to rule out the possibility of violence if he loses in November. When asked by Time magazine in April if he expected violence after the election, he said, “If we don’t win, you know, it depends.” He has told supporters that any loss in this year’s race would be due to fraud. 

The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for comment. The Trump campaign, when asked about the steady rise of political violence and the recent attacks against Harris and Trump supporters, provided a statement attacking Harris on immigration and criminal justice reform.

“DOING MY PART”

The highest-profile case of recent political violence was the first assassination attempt on Trump at a July 13 campaign rally in Pennsylvania. The shooter, Thomas Crooks, was killed at the scene. He had no “definitive ideology,” federal investigators concluded.

Law enforcement agencies were put on alert for potential retaliatory violence by Trump supporters. There were some concerning incidents, including a man in Florida who told his wife he was “preparing for war” after the shooting and left home with multiple guns, according to police reports. He was found burying a full ammunition box in a public park. Police seized seven rifles and handguns, and had the man hospitalized for a mental health evaluation. 

But the anger wasn’t confined to Trump’s supporters.

On the day of the assassination attempt, Joshua Kemppainen, an avowed Trump hater in northern Michigan, raged in a private chat with friends on the Discord messaging app. “Nice aim dickhead,” Kemppainen wrote over a picture of a bleeding Trump. A member of the chat group shared the message with Reuters. 

Kemppainen, 22 and unemployed, went on a vandalism spree eight days later in his town of Hancock, population 4,500, which mostly backed Trump in the 2020 election.

On July 21, when President Joe Biden quit the presidential race and endorsed Harris, Kemppainen rode an all-terrain vehicle through the streets and targeted Trump supporters, said Hancock Police Department chief Tami Sleeman in an interview.

Reuters pieced together what happened from police reports obtained in a records request, copies of chat messages provided by Kemppainen’s associates and police, and a video Kemppainen posted on Discord.

He vandalized a pickup truck with a Trump sticker, deflating its tires, tearing off a side mirror and smashing its windows. He also damaged a truck with a pro-police decal. He posted a video of one attack on Discord with the comment “doing my part.” Then he tore up Trump yard signs and threw them into the street.

When an onlooker, Carl Nelson, 81, replanted the signs, Kemppainen ran him over with the ATV and fled, hospitalizing the Vietnam veteran.

The next day, Kemppainen rang Hancock Police: “I am calling to confess to a crime,” he said in a message describing his rampage, according to a recording police shared with Reuters. “So if you could send someone to pick me up. I appreciate it."

When police heard the voicemail two hours later, they worried the caller sounded unbalanced and dispatched six officers, said Sleeman, the chief. By the time they arrived, Kemppainen had fatally shot himself with an assault rifle, a police report said. His father said Kemppainen was on anti-depression medication and also had an autism diagnosis, the report added. In an interview, a family member confirmed that Kemppainen struggled with mental health issues.

Nelson, who Kemppainen attacked, told Reuters he spent several days in the hospital for knee and upper body injuries. “This was such a peaceful area,” said Nelson. He has decided to vote for Trump, he added.

On Sept. 15, a second assassination attempt on Trump refocused attention on the risk of political violence in this year’s election. Suspect Ryan Routh had waited for hours with an assault rifle by Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach when an agent spotted him in shrubbery and fired. Routh fled and was apprehended quickly. 

Eleven days later, in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, Alan Vandersloot, a 74-year-old local borough councilman, stood with a Harris sign among about a dozen of her supporters at a rally in York, a city of nearly 45,000 in a county that broadly backed Trump in 2020.

As the rally was ending, Vandersloot told Reuters, a man grabbed him from behind and slammed him to the pavement, opening a two-inch gash on his forehead. The attacker, Robert Trotta, punched Vandersloot repeatedly before fleeing, two witnesses said in interviews.

When another rallygoer, Dan Almoney, gave chase, Trotta called him “a n—- supporter,” Almoney said. Almoney interpreted the slur as a reference to Harris and her backers, he said. Trotta, Vandersloot and Almoney are white.

Trotta, unable to post bail, has yet to make a plea on assault and harassment charges, court records show. His lawyer declined to comment. Trotta is a registered Republican, according to state records. His social media posts, from an account last active in 2020, supported Trump and criticized Democrats.

A York City Police Department spokesperson, Captain Daniel Lentz, said he didn’t believe Trotta’s attack was “politically motivated” because Trotta previously pleaded guilty to two cases of harassment in which he struck random people. The police report, however, did not include statements from Vandersloot and Almoney, who both said they believed the attack was political. Lentz said he didn’t know why the police didn’t record their accounts.

NEW ISSUES, NEW VIOLENCE

There’s no government data on political violence, though several universities and private research groups track it in various ways, typically using databases built on news accounts. Some include random hate crimes; others, including Reuters, do not. Most have not released comprehensive data since 2020.

The 300 cases identified by Reuters were culled from records on thousands of violent crimes since the 2021 Capitol attack. Most of that data was captured initially by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a global violence-tracking project run by a nonpartisan research group in Wisconsin. Reporters identified additional cases using news databases, court filings and police reports obtained through public records requests.

Some of the cases don’t break down along traditional partisan lines, including those linked to disputes over the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. 

That was the case last month when Caleb Gannon, a pro-Palestinian critic of U.S. government support for Israel, began heckling a pro-Israel rally in Newton, Massachusetts. Cell phone video shows Gannon shouting, “You’re supporting genocide!” before running into the crowd and tackling Scott Hayes, a fervent backer of Israel.

Earlier this year, Hayes, an Iraq War veteran, posted a photo on social media of a handgun with a Star of David pendant and the message “Hey Jew Haters. Bring it.” As they wrestled on the ground, Hayes shot Gannon in the abdomen. 

Hayes, 47, is awaiting trial after pleading not guilty to assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. The county prosecutor has said an assault and battery charge also will be pursued against Gannon, 31, who remains hospitalized. Hayes’ lawyer said he will argue self-defense but declined further comment.

Other cases are directly linked to the election. 

On Sept. 26, a Michigan man was arrested for assaulting a U.S. Postal Service worker who delivered a Harris campaign mailer to his house. The postal worker was in her truck when Russell Valleau, 61, approached on a bike, yelling that he “did not want that ‘Black bitch’ in his mailbox,” according to police records and a statement from the Oakland County prosecutor.

When the postal worker, who is Black, told Valleau to back away, he called her a “Black bitch” and lunged at her with a knife, according to her account to the Farmington Hills Police Department. She sprayed him with dog repellent, and he retreated. “I just had a man come to me with a knife and try to stab me,” she said moments later in a call to police, according to a recording obtained through a records request. “I sprayed him.”

Police reported finding Valleau lying in a nearby yard, apparently intoxicated and suffering the effects of chemical repellant. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of assault and battery and ethnic intimidation. His lawyer did not respond to a request for comment. 

In another case this summer, four white men in a pick-up truck rolled up to a rural home in coastal North Carolina and asked three Black teens in the yard “if they liked Donald Trump,” according to a report from the Pasquotank County Sheriff's Office. When the youths said, “No,” the report said, the men opened fired with a BB gun, hitting one youth in the leg and another in the buttocks. The shots also broke windows on the house, a shed and a car out front. 

The truck drove off. Police are investigating the case as an assault with a deadly weapon and have no suspects. The children suffered minor injuries and declined medical treatment. 

Christian Gilyard, the youths’ father, said political tensions have become more pronounced since the contested 2020 election, but he never expected problems in his own neighborhood. “It’s shocking,” he said, “that something like this would happen here.”

(Peter Eisler reported from Washington. Ned Parker reported from New York. Editing by Jason Szep)