U.S. Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump is surrounded by his U.S. Secret Service protective detail as he arrives for a campaign town hall meeting, moderated by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, in Flint, Michigan, U.S. (Reuters)
The US law enforcement agencies have refuted social media posts which claimed that explosives had been found in a car near former President Donald Trump’s scheduled rally in New York on Wednesday.
The reports of explosives being found near the rally site started making rounds on the internet just hours ahead of Trump’s rally in Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale. This comes just days after the former president was apparently targeted in a second assassination attempt in Florida.
Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said that “police questioned and detained a person who may have been training a bomb detection dog, near the site of the rally and falsely reported explosives being found,” as reported by Associated Press.
People line up to hear Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speak at a campaign event at Nassau Coliseum, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, in Uniondale, N.Y. (AP)
Lt. Scott Skrynecki, a spokesperson for the county police, said that the person detained by police, who is yet to be identified, is a civilian and doesn’t belong to the law enforcement agency.
Spokesperson Scott further said that the detained person was not working or part of the event which is slated to attract thousands of Trump supporters in New York.
The rally is going to be former President Trump’s first in Long Island. In the 2020 presidential elections, President Joe Biden had defeated Trump by a roughly 4% margin on Long Island and trumped the Republican nominee by 60,000 votes in Nassau County.
Trump had earlier survived an assassination attempt in July during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania when the shooter opened fire at the rally targeting the former president. Trump was hurt in his ear and one of the attendees died when a US Secret Service agent killed the shooter on the spot.
In the second apparent assassination attempt, Trump was at his golf course in Florida on Sunday when a suspect was aiming at the vicinity with an AK-47 style firearm. The suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, was later arrested and charged with two firearm offenses in federal court.
