Trump’s ex-campaign boss hospitalized amid threat to harm self
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale has been hospitalized after he threatened to harm himself, according to Florida police and campaign officials.
Police officers talked Parscale out of his Fort Lauderdale home after his wife called police to say that he had multiple firearms andwas threatening to hurt himselfwhen hewas hospitalized Sunday under the state’s Baker Act. That act allows anyone deemed to be a threat to themselves or others to be detained for 72 hours for psychiatric evaluation.
“Brad Parscale is a member of our family, and we love him,” said Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh. “We are ready to support him and his family in any way possible.”
Fort Lauderdale police on Monday released body camera footage, a 911 call and records detailing how Sunday’s emergency unfolded. It started with his wife’s call for help, and police saw cuts and bruises on his wife that she said were caused by Parscale.
Police body camera footage showed how officers knocked a shirtless Parscale to the ground outside his home and detained him.
Officers recovered 10 firearms from his home — including several pistols, a shotgun and rifle.
The encounter with police started Sunday afternoon in the home where Parscale, 44, lives with his wife, Candice Parscale. The couple had argued, and Candice Parscale said her husband chambered a round into a pistol during a heated exchange between the two.
It’s unclear what they were arguing about, but she said she fled the house in fear and asked a real estate agent, who was about to show a nearby house, for help. The agent called police.
On the phone, Candice Parscale told a 911 dispatcher that she heard a gunshot shortly after exiting her home and was afraid her husband was going to kill himself. Later, she told an officer she couldn’t be sure if it had been a gunshot or a car backfiring.
She also told officers that Brad Parscale had been “stressed out” over the past two weeks and had made comments about shooting himself.
Candice Parscale also said Brad Parscale drinks and “suffers from PTSD,” police said.
Parscale was demoted from the campaign manager’s post in July but remained part of the campaign, helping run its digital operation.