Guy rams van into tent of those doing voter registration

[TimothyC]

Authorities in Florida said on Saturday that a man deliberately rammed a vehicle into a tent of Republican volunteers who were registering people to vote.

“Jacksonville police say a driver intentionally crashed a van through a tent where Duval County GOP volunteers were registering voters Saturday afternoon,” The Florida Times-Union reported. “Several Duval County GOP volunteers were working at the registration tent when a white man in his early 20s driving an older – possibly 1980s – brown van pulled up toward the tent.”

Lt. Larry Gayle of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office told reporters that law enforcement was looking at the incident “as in reference to interruption of the political process.”

“We are investigating this as a aggravated assault,” Gayle said. “Several people were in the area and could have been seriously hurt. … JSO is taking the situation very seriously.”

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel responded to the alleged attack by writing on Twitter: “These unprovoked, senseless attacks on @realDonaldTrump’s supporters need to end. I want to echo the @DuvalGOP in saying: We will not be silenced by cowards, and these disgusting acts will only make us work harder to win November.”

President Donald Trump quickly responded, writing, “Law Enforcement has been notified. Be careful tough guys who you play with!”

The Florida Times-Union added that Gayle said that after the driver rammed the vehicle that he got out and flipped off the victims before running away.

“We are outraged by this senseless act of violence toward our great volunteers,” Duval GOP Chairman Dean Black said. “The Republican Party of Duval County will not be intimidated by these cowards and we will not be silenced. I call on every Republican in our great city to stand up, get involved and show these radicals that we will not be intimidated from exercising our Constitutional rights.”

In a series of tweets, the Duval County GOP documented the incident, writing, “Today in Jacksonville, Florida six Trump Campaign volunteers were intentionally targeted while registering voters.”

“At approximately 2:45 p.m. a multi-colored brown and gold van driven by what is described as a white male in his 20s or 30s, accelerated into a crowd of volunteers at the Kernan Village shopping center located at 11900 Atlantic Boulevard,” Duval County GOP continued. “Thankfully, Republican volunteers narrowly avoided being struck by the accelerating van. The driver sped away after making an obscene gesture toward the crowd.”

Duval County GOP, concluded, “The Republican Party of Duval County plans to redouble its efforts to register voters and will continue it’s fight with renewed intensity to re-elect President Donald Trump.”

Daniel Henry, the President of the Duval County Democratic Party, released a statement saying he condemns the attack: “The Duval County Democratic Party condemns this cowardly act of violence. No one’s life should be placed in danger for exercising their first amendment rights. As Democrats, but more importantly, as residents of this great city of Jacksonville, we call on our fellow citizens to act with dignity, civility and respect for one another during this election cycle and beyond. We look forward to JSO’s arrest of the perpetrator.”

Posted without comment at this time.

[The Romulan Republic]

To state the obvious, this person is a terrorist who should go to prison. I'm glad they didn't hurt anyone (beyond the obvious psychological stress this incident will presumably cause on those involved).

This is eerily like the incident in Canada today, where someone drove through a group of protesters blocking a road in support of indigenous rights vs fossil fuel companies. Again, no one was seriously hurt, which suggests that the driver was either incompetent or not really trying to kill anyone, but they were at least recklessly endangering others and committing assault/engaging in intimidation.

Assuming they are in fact anti-Trump, they're also a fucking moron, because they did fuck-all to actually undermine Trump, but they did give him and his goons an excellent talking point to further vilify Democrats and motivate his supporters. Without a doubt, this incident will now be used for endless Whataboutism/Both Sides to excuse Republican terrorists and deflect blame/argue that "Democrats are the REAL terrorists". And as the article shows, its already being used to motivate Trumper turnout and pain the opposition as extremists. Even though I doubt you will see a single elected Democrat defend this act, or suggest that there were "very fine people on both sides".

Even if we were already at the point of all-out civil war, attacking civilian targets (which volunteers registering voters obviously are) would be... oh yeah, a WAR CRIME.

Fuck this guy six ways to Sunday for endangering lives and helping Trump so he could pointlessly vent his rage.

Edit: this one does lean more towards "murderous intent" than the one in Canada, since the guy reportedly accelerated, while the driver in Canada just seemed to be trying to force their way through the crowd (albeit recklessly), and was driving slowly/honking. So, file this one under "fortunately incompetent terrorist".

[Jub]

Fuck the driver of that van with the van he rode in on. Whatever his aims, whatever his reasons, his actions were reprehensible and I hope he faces all the prison time he deserves for his cowardly acts.

[madd0ct0r]

A 27-year-old Jacksonville man has been accused of assaulting two senior citizen supporters of President Donald Trump as they tried to register voters in a Jacksonville shopping plaza parking lot.

Gregory Timm’s weapon of the alleged assault: a van, driven through a tent.

Timm’s Saturday night arrest was announced Sunday by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. He faces two counts of aggravated assault on a victim over the age of 65, one count of criminal mischief and one count of driving while his license is suspended. Sunday, his bond was set at $507,500.[\quote]

Miami herald

[The Romulan Republic]

I wonder if there has been an uptick in this sort of shit over the last couple weeks, or if its just getting more coverage. To be clear, I'm not defending street violence against random Trump supporters in any sense, and I consider it as stupid and counterproductive to the anti-Trump resistance as it is inherently immoral- again, even in an actual state of war, terror attacks against random unarmed civilians would be an atrocity. But I do wonder if there's an uptick in Left-wing/anti-Trump violence following Trump's acquittal, and the very powerful message it sent that conventional legal and political channels cannot be counted on to hold Trump accountable.

To quote JFK: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Of course, at this point this just plays into the fascists' hands. They want random Left-wing street violence, which is no real threat to them, but will give them a pretext for a further crackdown. Hell, fascism actively yearns for street battles and a nation/world-wide race war.