This twerp's future activities must be watched very carefully.
Posted on 05/05/2017 11:43:58 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Michael Sandford stopped calling his mother last May. He was in a foreign country, unemployed and living out of a car, but he had a plan. He had learned how to shoot a gun. He wanted to kill Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The autistic 20-year-old British man set out from California at about the same time his mother, Lynne, reported him as missing.
In June, Sandford showed up at a Trump rally in Las Vegas. As the candidate spoke before a raucous crowd, the Briton moved close to the stage. He noticed a holstered gun strapped to a policeman's side and suddenly lunged for it.
After the officer had restrained the slightly built young man, Sandford said he was trying to shoot Trump.
In the fall, Sandford's lawyers argued that their client was in the midst of a psychotic episode at the time of the incident. Michael Sandford tearfully apologized for his actions. He was convicted of "disrupting an official function" and illegally possessing a firearm and sentenced to a year in prison.
"You should not be ashamed or embarrassed about [your condition]," the judge told Sandford during his sentencing. "You need medication. You're not a hardened criminal. You're not evil or a sociopath like a lot of people we have."
On Friday, British news outlets reported that Sandford had been quietly released from prison after five months and had arrived back in the United Kingdom on Thursday.
Lynne Sandford told the BBC that her son "had been frequently put on suicide watch in prison and claimed Trump-supporting guards and inmates had been making his life a misery."
Punishment for assassins and would-be assassins of presidential candidates is usually far greater than five months in prison. In 1912, a German immigrant named John Schrank shot Theodore Roosevelt in the chest while Roosevelt was speaking in Milwaukee. The former president famously went on finish his speech. Shrank spent the rest of his life in prison. New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy was shot to death in 1968 in Los Angeles. His assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, is still incarcerated. Alabama Gov. George Wallace was paralyzed by a gunman's bullet in 1972, ending his presidential bid. His attacker, Arthur Bremer, spent 35 years in prison before being paroled in 2007.
U.S. officials have not publicly commented but apparently do not consider Sandford a threat to President Trump. Lynne Sandford has said her son's disabilities are obvious. His speech is slow, his hands shake. He often seems confused.
"Trying to grab a policeman's gun?" she said shortly after Michael's arrest last year. "He wouldn't have stood a chance."
If he tried to off Emperor Zero, he’d never have been heard from again in prison.
Looks can be deceiving. According to Heavy.com “5 fast facts about Michael Sanford” He planned this attempt for more than a year, and drove from California to the Treasure Island Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada to get near Trump. Michael also purchased a ticket for Donald Trump’s next speech in Phoenix later that same day in case he missed his chance.
His father in Britain thinks someone has radicalized his son.
It’s likely that this young man is on a ‘No Fly’ list from now on. At least I would hope so. As far as Michael is privately concerned; his ‘work’ is not yet done.
Wonder if there’s any connection between him and MI6’s Christopher Steele?
>> “You should not be ashamed or embarrassed about [your condition],” the judge told Sandford during his sentencing. “You need medication. You’re not a hardened criminal. You’re not evil or a sociopath like a lot of people we have.”
Well, isn’t that sweet?
This twerp's future activities must be watched very carefully.
This twerp's future activities must be watched very carefully.
The banality of evil
Wow. Smart enough to do all those things & smart enough to play autistic card.
The Gentle Giant (also named Michael) tried to grab a cop's gun, and it didn't work out well for him. She should be glad her son is still alive.
Really? Fantasizing about government competence doesn't make it true.
Lynne Sandford told the BBC that her son "had been frequently put on suicide watch in prison and claimed Trump-supporting guards and inmates had been making his life a misery."
My sympathies go out to the cop. Every night he probably wakes in the early hours in a cold sweat - what might have happened. A life sentence for him if not for the perp.
Have the parents of this freak apologized? I haven’t seen that in the papers. I generally don’t read the Mail because of pop-ups. Those parents were the ones who belonged in jail.
Scrawny thing. Most of the women I’ve dated weighed more than that.
A 13 year old autistic boy stabbed his mother to death in California this week.
That ought to teach the Limey bastard to come here to spread his evil on "this side of the pond." Note to all British evil-doers: "This side of the pond" will put a bullet in your ass, it's the 'Merican way. And don't forget it, 'cuz we'll also poke your eyes out...
;^)
Some oddities about that... he crossed the country but left no record of where he stayed; he was an unknown; etc. — ie, a perfect “loner” for an assassination story.
Hypothetical:
He couldn’t bring a weapon into a rally — that would be detected; so assume the “plan” was for him to “grab” a gun once inside, from a co-cooperating cop.
But he was only there to create a distraction (ie, attempting to shoot). The real intended shooter (another cop, or guy in a cop’s uniform) would do the actual shooting (”crossfire”).
That’s a typical mafia-style tactic.
Of course he went to the wrong cop, and the job was botched.
Maybe none of that happened, and it’s only tin foil hat stuff. But given our history since 1963, nothing can be ruled out.
According to his father, Michael had been in the US for about a year and 3 months. He moved here because while still in the U.K. he had met an American girl, had some sort of relationship with her, and became depressed when she returned to the US. So his parents paid for him to come here, and evidently continued to financially support him during his stay.
During the few months leading up to Michael’s attempt on Trump, Michael became more distant to his parents, not saying where he was or revealing much information to them. According to his father, it was very out of character for Michael to have any cares about politics, and even more so for him to become violent. Who was he spending time with leading up to the event that not only gave him a new found interest in either politics or Trump, but changed his alleged non-violent nature to one set upon violence to Trump?
“He’s never shown any violent tendencies before, he’s never been a bad person, he’s a nice kid and literally wouldn’t hurt a fly - he used to tell us not to use fly spray because he didn’t want any flies to die.”
“Over the last three months it was hard to get any information out of him and he seemed upset, but he wouldn’t tell us why.”
“Looking back, I don’t want to use the term radicalised but we don’t know who he has been speaking with - this just isn’t him.
“It’s an absolute shock, he’s never been violent in the slightest, he’s always been a polite and peaceful boy.
“It’s totally out of character and we’re worried about what has happened to him since he’s been in America because obviously it’s a dramatic change.
“Whether he’s been blackmailed or put up to it, that’s the only thing me and his mum can think of. It’s so against his nature and obviously with his Aspergers, we think somebody has got hold of him and done something.”
“He has no interest in politics, the world, geography or anything. He’s not a typical teenager because he doesn’t drink or smoke or do drugs, he’s never had any interest in that.”
He said: “He has never mentioned Donald Trump, the reason it is such a shock is because he shows no interest in anything like that.
“If I asked him to name the Prime Minister he’d be able to tell me but he wouldn’t know any other politicians. I doubt he would even know who the President of the United States is.
“It will be an outside influence as to why he’s done it, he’s never been like that and it’s not something he’d do off his own back. Maybe it was a cry for help.”
Conspiracy or not, Michael certainly was the perfect candidate for such a scenario. I’d sure like to know who he was associating with in the months leading up to this, but it’s doubtful that info will ever be revealed even though it’s almost certain such has been investigated to one degree or another.
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