TRUMP MAINTAINS SUPPORT WITH BASE IN BOMB AFTERMATH.
Rally attendees blame media, Democrats
AVENTURA, FLA. • The apartment block looked idyllic but for the flash of police lights. Set by the coast in Aventura, a suburban city just north of Miami, it rose some 25 floors into the sky. Children came home with towels around their shoulders after a day in the water. Parents in shorts and T-shirts enjoyed the late autumn sun.
There was little to suggest the block once housed Cesar Sayoc, the 56-year-old Trump supporter accused of orchestrating a bombing spree against the pin-ups of liberal America from the Obamas to CNN and Robert De Niro.
The plot, an apparent genuine attempt to take life, gripped the country last week and forced political discourse and the divided nature of U.S. politics back into the spotlight.
A five-day manhunt finally tracked down Sayoc, thanks to a fingerprint on one of the packages, to the city of Plantation, a 30-minute drive north from this apartment block.
His white van, plastered with pro-Trump stickers and posters naming liberal hate-figures alongside crosshair symbols, was covered by police and taken away for evidence.
The episode has been seen as emblematic of the political gulf between the Republican and Democrat halves of America, both suspicious of the other’s aims and motives.
U.S. President Donald Trump called for “unity” in the wake of the attacks but partly blamed the media, pulling few punches at public rallies.
Prosecutors who charged Sayoc with five federal crimes said the fervent Trump supporter unwittingly left behind a wealth of clues.
The bubble-wrapped manila envelopes, addressed to Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and intercepted, held the forensic evidence that was used to arrest Sayoc four days after the investigation started.
“Criminals make mistakes so the more opportunities that law enforcement has to detect them, the greater chance they’re going to be able to act on that, and that appears to be what happened here,” said former Justice Department prosecutor Aloke Chakravarty, who prosecuted the Boston Marathon bombing case.
On Thursday from noon to 9 p.m., as the police closed in, Sayoc was working as a DJ at a West Palm Beach nightclub. There, he spun records from a dimly lit booth overlooking a stage, with performers dancing below.
“I didn’t know this guy was mad crazy like this,” said Stacy Saccal, the club’s manager. “Never once did he speak politics. This is a bar. We don’t talk politics or religion, you know?”
But Scott Meigs, another DJ at the club, had a different experience.
He said Sayoc had been talking about politics to everybody at the club for the last two weeks, preaching the need to elect Republicans during the November midterms. “I just figured he was passionate about the elections.”
The next morning, he was taken into custody near an auto parts store in Plantation. Across the street, Thomas Fiori, a former federal law enforcement officer, said he saw about 50 armed officers swarm a man standing outside a white van with windows plastered with stickers supporting Trump and criticizing media outlets including CNN.
They ordered him to the ground, Fiori said, and he did not resist.
“He had that look of, ‘I’m done, I surrender,’ ” Fiori said.
At a Republican rally outside Jacksonville, Fla., on Thursday — before Sayoc was named as the suspect — there was little blame for Trump for the coarsening of political debate in America.
Kathryn Morton, the 67-year-old chairman of the Duval County Republican Party, said she scored the president’s blame for the state of politics today at 1 in 10.
“People will not like certain phrases he uses but they are unaccustomed to a president being confrontational and sticking up for himself, his family and his country for that matter. People are still kind of shocked about that,” she said. “Bottom line. I don’t care if he swears or not. He is standing up for himself and he’s standing up for us and he’s standing up for America. I don’t care. It’s about time somebody got a backbone and stood up.”
She defended Trump’s swipe at the media, saying: “One incident on one day, which is still somewhat questionable, doesn’t change the media and their bias and confrontational spirit and their flat-out lies.”
Frank Nichols, a 62-yearold wearing a Hawaiian shirt featuring multiple images of the American flag, was similarly supportive of Trump.
“I kind of like all the smart-alec remarks because everybody else just kind of put up with the Democrats’ tactics but he’s willing to talk to them and call them out on it,” he said.
He agreed politics had become bitterly divided, but blamed the other side. “I think the Democrats started it 10, 15 years ago,” he said. “Republicans just kind of wimped out and didn’t fight back. He’s fighting back.”
Trump was asked on Friday whether he should tone down his rhetoric. “I think I’ve been toned down if you want to know the truth,” he responded. “I could really tone it up.”