Police end a tense standoff with former campaign manager

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A husband who’d been drinking, had weapons, and may have threatened suicide. A wife with cuts and bruises who fled the house. An urgent call to police, who responded with SWAT team members and a forced takedown when the man emerged from the couple’s waterfront estate in Fort Lauderdale.

The combustible situation — combined with presidential politics of the rapid fall of President Donald Trump’s once high-flying campaign manager, Brad Parscale — unfolded before the nation on Monday through police reports, 911 audio and police video showing officers knocking a shirtless and barefoot Parscale to the ground outside his home and detained him.

Officers recovered 10 firearms from his home — including several pistols, a shotgun and rifle. He was detained for a mental health evaluation under Florida’s Baker Act.

The encounter with police started Sunday afternoon on DeSota Drive, 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 the cops.

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.

“Oh no, did he do that? Oh my gosh, your arms, both your arms, has he been hurting you?” the real estate agent can be heard asking Candice Parscale as they wait for the police.

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 her husband drinks and “suffers from PTSD,” and had a collection of guns inside the home, police said.

“While speaking with Candace Parscale I noticed several large sized contusions on both of her arms, her cheek and forehead. When I asked how she received the bruising, Candace Parscale stated Brad Parscale hits her. When asked if he made these markings today, she claimed he did not. I continued to ask if Brad Parscale physically assaulted her in anyway today and she said no, but he did forcibly smack her phone out of her hand when she was attempting to call Brad Parscale’s father,” wrote Detective Steven Smith, misspelling her first name with a second “a” instead of an “i.”

Smith added that “it was evident that Candace Parscale could not safely be left with Brad.”

Officer Timothy Skaggs was the first to arrive at the neighbor’s house, records show. He said he witnessed bruising on Candice Parscale’s arm and face. She told him that the injuries had come from Brad Parscale, though she said she’d gotten them earlier that week.

Skaggs called Brad Parscale over a telephone, and found “Bradley’s speech was slurred as though he was under the influence of an alcoholic beverage and he seemed to be crying.”