Authorities in California arrested a man with multiple illegal loaded firearms near a Trump rally on Saturday, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office said.
Sheriff’s deputies operating a checkpoint roughly one mile from the former president’s rally in the Coachella Valley on Saturday stopped a man driving a black SUV at 4:59 p.m. The rally was scheduled to begin at 5:00 p.m.
The suspect was identified as Vem Miller, a 49-year-old resident of Las Vegas, Nevada. Miller was arrested and charged with possession of a loaded firearm and possession of a high-capacity magazine, the sheriff’s office said.
Miller was in illegal possession of a shotgun, a loaded handgun, and a high capacity magazine, the sheriff’s office said. Few details have been released about the arrest, but Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco later told the Southern California News Group that Miller was also in possession of fake VIP and press passes.
“We probably stopped another assassination attempt,” Bianco told the newspaper group.
Bianco is an outspoken Trump supporter, and even spoke and served as a delegate at the Republican National Convention in July.
Miller is also a registered Republican, and previously ran for a state assembly seat in Clark County in 2022. He lost in the Republican primary for the seat, according to Nevada’s secretary of state.
“This incident did not impact the safety of former President Trump or attendees of the event,” the sheriff’s office said in a press release on Sunday.
