A Las Vegas man who was arrested outside former President Donald Trump’s rally in Coachella over the weekend had multiple firearms, boxes of ammunition, and passports with different names in his possession, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco said Sunday.
The suspect, Vem Miller, 49, was contacted by sheriff’s deputies on Saturday around 5 p.m. when he tried to get through a checkpoint leading into the rally.
But Miller never made it inside, after authorities noticed “irregularities” in some of the things he was saying to gain access to the event.
An investigation revealed Miller not only claimed to be a journalist with access to the VIP area, but he was driving in an unregistered vehicle with a fake license plate, Bianco said.
“The license plate was what we in law enforcement would recognize as one that is homemade and indicative of a group of individuals that claim to be ‘sovereign citizens,'” Bianco said. “We, and assuming the deputy, assumes that he [Miller] was part of that identifying group.”
Miller was also in possession of multiple passports and driver’s licenses with different names. Two guns and multiple boxes of ammunition were recovered inside the vehicle, which Bianco described as “in disarray.”
Miller was taken into custody for possession of a loaded firearm and possession of a high-capacity magazine. He was booked and has since been released with a promise to appear in court at a future date, which according to online records, is Jan. 2, 2025.
“There is absolutely no way that any of us are going to truly know what was in his head,” Bianco said.
Trump’s safety or that of the attendees of the rally was not impacted, officials said.
Bianco declined to speculate about the suspect’s motives or frame of mind. “We know we prevented something bad from happening, and it was irrelevant what that bad was going to be,” Bianco said.
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