Austyn Crites tells
how his plan to hold up a protest sign at a Trump rally ended in
violence and the involvement of the Secret Service and police in
Reno. ‘All of sudden these people next to me are getting violent,’
says the self-proclaimed Republican, who was wrestled and placed in a
chokehold on Saturday. ‘I was very happy that the police came,’
he adds.
Trump
protester: I was beaten for holding a 'Republicans against Trump'
sign
Exclusive:
Self-declared Republican who sparked Nevada security scare says he
was attacked for silently showing a sign he printed from the web
Paul Lewis and Tom
Silverstone in Reno, Nevada
Sunday 6 November
2016 05.07 GMT
The man whose
protest saw Donald Trump rushed off the stage by Secret Service
agents has said the Republican nominee’s supporters turned on him
when he held up a sign reading: “Republicans against Trump”.
The man, who
identified himself as Austyn Crites from Reno, told the Guardian he
was holding the sign at a rally when Trump supporters wrestled him to
the ground.
The 33-year-old –
who says he has been a registered Republican for about six years –
said he was kicked, punched and choked, and feared for his life when
the crowd turned on him at the gathering in Reno, Nevada.
Crites cited Trump’s
treatment of Mexicans, Muslims and women as the reason he decided to
protest again Trump, who he described as “a textbook version of a
dictator and a fascist”.
There were panicked
scenes at the Trump rally, apparently prompted by shouts from at
least one person in the crowd that the protester had a gun.
Hundreds of people
fled to the the back of the auditorium in panic as Trump was
hurriedly rushed from the stage by his security detail.
Moments later, Trump
reappeared on stage and said: “Nobody said it was going to be easy
but we will never be stopped. We will never be stopped.”
The US Secret
Service later said in a statement that no weapon was found on the
subject detained at the rally, who had been released.
The Guardian found a
bruised and shocked-looking Crites outside the auditorium. He said he
was shaken and had pain in the back, but was otherwise uninjured.
Crites, who said he
was an inventor who works with high-altitude balloons, said the
incident occurred after he walked toward the front of the stage to
protest silently against Trump.
He confirmed witness
descriptions of him moving through the crowd toward the front.
However, he said he was not barging through but saying “Can I
please come through, can I please come through”.
When he was near the
front of the crowd, he said he silently held aloft his sign.
I had a sign that
said ‘Republicans against Trump’. It is a sign that you can just
print off online
Austyn Crites,
protester
“I had a sign that
said ‘Republicans against Trump’. It is a sign that you can just
print off online.”
Initially, there was
the expected reaction of people around him booing, he said. “And
then all of a sudden people next to me are starting to get violent;
they’re grabbing at my arm, trying to rip the sign out of my hand,”
he said.
He said he could not
be sure but “it looked like” Trump was pointing at him, and may
have been “instigating something”. Either way, the crowd piled on
him, he said, kicking, punching, holding him on the ground and
grabbing his testicles.
He said he was a
wrestler in his youth and used his training to turn his head to the
side to maintain an airway open as he was being choked by one man who
had him in a headlock. “But there were people wrenching on my neck
they could have strangled me to death,” he added.
Crites said when he
was on the ground he heard someone yell “something about a gun”
and he kept telling those on top of him that he had merely been
holding a sign.
He was unaware,
until the Guardian told him, that Trump had been ushered from the
stage amid the mayhem.
For his part, Crites
said he felt relieved when police arrived and placed him in
handcuffs, but said officers had to fend off Trump supporters who
continued to attack him. “As I was taken from the room, people are
just looking at me like I’m a demon,” he said.
He said he was taken
to the back of the auditorium, searched, subjected to a background
check and then swiftly released.
Several Trump
supporters who witnessed the incident told the Guardian they saw a
man wrestled to the ground and, after he was on the ground, heard
shouts that he had a weapon, prompting panic.
One of those
witnesses, a Trump supporter, said he had seen the protester holding
a “Republicans against Trump” sign, and assumed it had been
misidentified as a weapon.
Although he
described himself as a Republican and fiscal conservative, Crites
said he had canvassed “for a few hours” with the Clinton campaign
in Nevada because he wanted to do all he could to prevent a Trump
presidency
He said he was not
fully supportive of Clinton but believed she was the only candidate
who could stop Trump from reaching the White House.
Crites said he had
not formal connection to the Clinton campaign and decided to attend
the rally on his own volition.
“Evan [Evan]
McMullin is someone I also support,” he said of the independent
conservative standing for president on many states, and added that he
backed Trump’s Republican opponents during the primaries. “John
Kasich, for example, was a great candidate.”
Crites said he felt
Trump supporters were well-meaning but simply misguided by Trump’s
demagoguery. “He’s fascist, he’s a dictator,” he said of the
Republican nominee, saying such leaders turn normal people “into
animals”.
While he was
surprised at what occurred at the rally, Crites he said he did not
blame the crowd for his treatment. “I like these people,” he
said. “These are my fellow Americans. I love these people. I
understand that they came here because they’re patriotic, they want
to do good for their country.”
He added: “The
people who attached me – I’m not blaming them. I’m blaming
Donald Trump’s hate rhetoric.”
“My heart still
aches for what this nation could potentially do by electing him,”
he added. “That hurts me much more than any of this violence.”
“The fact that I
got beat up today, that’s just showing what he’s doing to his
crowds. But I just want people to understand I’m going to be OK,
but now what’s more important is if the country going to be OK? So
do your part and vote.”
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