Police took 10 guns from former Trump campaign manager
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Fort Lauderdale police confiscated 10 guns Sunday from the home of President Donald Trump’s former reelection campaign manager after his wife told them he was suicidal, hit her and racked a handgun during an argument, according to newly released police reports.
Brad Parscale, 44, a former San Antonian, was involuntarily hospitalized under Florida’s Baker Act by officers and taken to Broward Health Medical Center Sunday after isolating himself in the $2.4 million home he shares in Fort Lauderdale’s Seven Isles with hiswife, Candice. In reports, audio and body camera footage released Monday, police documented a tense scene in which Parscale — after possibly firing a shot inside his house — initially refused to leave his home and was ultimately tackled by officers on the street when he emerged shirtless with a beer in his hand.
“Listen, I’m not trying to kill myself. She’s lying,” the 6-foot-8-inch Parscale tells an officer who approaches him in his driveway before he’s driven to the ground and handcuffed. “I didn’t do anything!”
Police have not charged Parscale with any crimes, but were preparing a petition Monday under Florida’s “red flag” lawto request that his guns be taken away, according to a spokeswoman.
Officers say they were called to the Parscale home around 3:36 p.m. Sunday by a Realtor who had encountered a shaken Candice Parscale while preparing to show a house nearby. The two women called 911 from the Realtor’s car parked down the street, and remained there when police
arrived.
“I was standing in the backyard,” Candice Parscale told an emergency dispatcher. “He’s under a lot of stress right now. He’s just pissed at theworld so he like walked out, cocked the handgun and was just ranting and raving about something. I don’t know what.”
Officers also wrote in their reports that Parscale’s wife told them he had posttraumatic stress disorder and had become violent in recent weeks. Candice Parscale, 41, showed them bruises on her arms froman argument “a few days” prior, they said. Police say they
took photos of injuries.
Parscale’s wife told them her husband had not hit her Sunday, but had smacked her phone out of her hand when she tried to call his father, according to the police reports.
Attempts to reach the Parscales by phone Sunday and Monday were unsuccessful. The person who initially called police, Terry Behal, would not share details about the incident with a reporter.
Parscale led Trump’s reelection campaign until he was fired by the president as campaign manager in mid July.