Armed Arizona man arrested for threatening Trump in multiple videos, including one just outside a campaign rally

By 
 December 1, 2024

President-elect Donald Trump may have just dodged yet another assassination attempt, after having narrowly escaped at least two other attempts to take his life in recent months.

An Arizona man was arrested this past week over multiple videos he'd posted that contained death threats against Trump and his family, including one that was filmed right outside one of Trump's campaign rallies in Glendale, the New York Post reported.

That man, Manuel Tamayo-Torres, is now charged with making threats against a president but also faces several counts for making false statements during the purchase of a firearm after it was discovered that he'd lied about his criminal record on the federal gun purchase form while attempting to buy one last year.

Multiple threatening videos posted

ABC News reported that Tamayo-Torres was arrested on Monday near San Diego, California, but is expected to be extradited to Arizona, as that is where the alleged crimes occurred and the resultant criminal charges were filed.

Per federal prosecutors, dating back to at least August and continuing through until just last week, Tamayo-Torres is alleged to have posted "numerous" videos to social media "on a near-daily basis" that featured him holding an AR-15-style weapon while making "vague yet direct threats" and bizarre accusations against President-elect Trump and his family.

In his most recent video, he said of Trump, "[Y]ou're gonna die," as well as, "[Y]our son's gonna die. Your whole family is going to die. ... I'm going to put a hole in your face."

In that and other videos, including one on Aug. 23 from right outside Trump's packed rally at the Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Tamayo-Torres accused the former president, members of his family, and even Secret Service agents of kidnapping and sex trafficking his children -- though it is unclear if the man actually has any children.

Prohibited from possessing firearms

Both ABC and the Post reported that prosecutors presented evidence from Tamayo-Torres' social media accounts which showed him in possession of not just the AR-15-style weapon wielded in his videos but also at least one other rifle and a tactical shotgun, along with multiple standard capacity magazines and ammunition.

According to Fox News, he was prohibited by federal law from possessing or purchasing any of that as he was a previously convicted felon who is also currently subject to a restraining order filed against him by his ex-wife.

Yet, despite the restraining order and the six-year sentence he received in 2003 for a felony assault conviction, Tamayo-Torres lied on two separate occasions at a Phoenix gun store last year when he falsely asserted on the federal gun purchase forms that he was neither a convicted felon nor subject to a restraining order during an unsuccessful attempt to buy more weapons he was not allowed to own.

Series of assassination attempts and threats against Trump

The fact that Tamayo-Torres recorded and posted one of his threatening videos against President-elect Trump from outside of one of his campaign rallies in Arizona is disturbingly reminiscent of the first known assassination attempt against Trump this year, which also occurred at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania in mid-July.

In that terrifying incident, the would-be assassin armed with a rifle gained access to a rooftop overlooking the nearby outdoor rally and managed to fire off several shots -- grazing Trump's ear with a near-miss of his head while killing one rally-goer and wounding two others -- before he was terminated by a Secret Service countersniper.

Just a couple of months later, Trump evaded a second would-be assassin who was armed with a rifle and waiting in some bushes to ambush the former president while he golfed on his private course near his Mar-a-Lago residence in South Florida, though the would-be shooter was scared away when he was spotted and fired upon by Secret Service agents.

Trump, along with members of his family, have endured an unknown number of death threats over the years, at least in part because of the way in which Democrats and the media have relentlessly demonized and smeared him, which undoubtedly has encouraged some of Trump's haters to take action against him.

" A free people [claim] their rights, as derived from the laws of nature."
Thomas Jefferson