Violent threats against Biden and his supporters are getting worse

A Maryland man was arrested last week on federal charges for making violent threats toward Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris, according to local prosecutors, the latest in a line of threatening incidents against the candidates and their supporters.

James Dale Reed was caught leaving a graphic and violent letter on a doorstep Oct. 4, the incident captured by a doorbell camera installed on the homeowners’ porch.

“Warning!” it read in big, bold letters.

The letter informed the homeowners that if they were Biden/Harris supports, they “will be targeted.”

“We have a list of homes and addresses by your election signs,” the letter claimed. “We are the ones with those scary guns.”

Reed then threatened to capture Biden and “severely” beat him to “the point of death.” He also threatened to sexually assault Harris.

“Then for the Grand end (they) both will be executed on National Television,” Reed wrote. “I would prefer CNN.”

After initial denials, Reed admitted to writing the letter and said he left it at the first house he saw with a Biden/Harris campaign sign in the lawn.

He has been charged with the federal offense of threatening a major candidate, carrying with it a prison sentence of up to five years.

Reed was also charged with threatening mass violence and voter intimidation, both violations of Maryland state law.

This isn’t the first threat Biden and his supporters have faced this election season.

In a viral video in October, a self-proclaimed “Trump supporter” threatened to start a war if Biden were elected.

In it, Zachary Poole of Williamsburg, Ohio claimed that if Trump won the election, Black Lives Matter and Antifa would protest and cause problems. So, he said, he and other Trump-supporting friends were ready to secure a Trump victory.

“We comin’ … and we comin’ strong,” he said.

Local police suspected he might be affiliated the Proud Boys, the white supremacist group that Donald Trump recently told to “stand back and stand by,” but they were unable to independently verify that claim.

Poole was not charged, but police continue to monitor his social media accounts and reported the incident to the FBI as a potential hate crime.

Elsewhere in October, in an unidentified location, a woman was caught on a Ring doorbell camera accosting her neighbor, threatening to sue her if she did not remove her Biden lawn sign.

The woman on the porch pointed out neighborhood bylaws regarding no signage on property, and then launched into a verbal attack on her neighbor.

“If you don’t take this Harris-Biden shit down, I will sue you,” she said to the homeowner.

She proceeded to shout that she was “going to have (the neighbor) sell (her) house,” but “that’s not going to happen now,” and threatened the homeowner’s business.

“You’re going to lose a lot of business because of this crap,” she said. Eventually she departed, shouting, “You get out your neighborhood association bylaws, section 5.20!”

In another incident in Florida, police arrested a Trump supporter who allegedly threw his neighbor’s Biden yard sign across the lawn. The man then shoved the neighbor and punched him in the face because he objected to the sign.

According to the Denver Post, in late September, a Colorado teenager waving a homemade “I’m Ridin’ With Joe Biden” sign said that a driver harassed him and then returned a second time to threaten the teen and his companions, saying he would bring an AR-15.

The man is then alleged to have returned with a gun to threaten the teen and other Biden supporters.

Back in March, Rep. Ken Buck (CO-R) himself tweeted a threatening message to Biden, posting a video of himself wielding an AR-15.

“I have just one message for Joe Biden … if you want to take everyone’s AR-15s, why don’t you swing by my office in Washington, D.C. and start with this one?” Buck wrote.

In the clip, he also threatened former Texas congressman and Texas Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke.

These threats are, tragically, nothing new for either Biden or Harris.

In 2018, a teen was indicted for making death threats against Harris for her pro-gun control stance.

The teen wrote a message to Harris’ Instagram account saying he would make sure “she and her radical lefty friends never get back in power.”

“You will never run for president, because you won’t make it to see that day.”

He was taken into federal custody.

But Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric is not doing anything to assuage the recurring threats to Biden and Harris’ persons.

Trump continues to call Harris “nasty” and a “monster,” while questioning her citizenship. Meanwhile, he’s leveled attacks on Biden’s supposed dementia and continues to assert his opponent is a criminal and a pedophile.

Eric Trump also referred to Harris in a now-deleted retweet as “whorendous.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.