This is the first in a multi-part Scripps News investigative series focused on political violence in America.
Carl Nelson woke up in a hospital bed in July with no memory of how he ended up there. All he could remember was placing a pair of campaign signs in the front yard before his memories became a blur.
Police in Hancock, Michigan, say a stranger with a political grudge was on a vandalism spree in July, riding around on an ATV and damaging vehicles bearing stickers supporting former President Donald Trump or law enforcement and pulling Trump campaign signs out of the ground.
When Nelson saw the stranger rip out the Trump signs from his brother’s front yard, he moved to replace them — but the ATV driver circled back and ran Nelson down before speeding away. Police body-worn camera video recorded that day shows the 82-year-old veteran bloodied and lying face down on the campaign sign.
He watched the police footage, obtained by Scripps News, for the first time last month at his home.
“First thing I remember is I woke up and [thought] why am I in a hospital?” Nelson told Scripps News. “They’re coming over… trying to describe to me that I’ll be there for a few days because they have to teach me how to walk again.”
Nelson shared medical records that show he suffered a cervical spine fracture, though he said he has mostly recovered from the injuries he sustained in the attack. But he said he’s still in disbelief that someone would hurt him for supporting the former president.
“There is a pretty wide divide between the two sides right now,” he said.
An elevated threat environment
The attack on the elderly man in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is just one piece in a frightening trend of escalating political violence targeting both parties across the United States.
After a gunman injured Trump and killed one of his supporters at a Pennsylvania rally in July, the FBI’s director, Christopher Wray, told Congress the United States is in an “elevated threat environment.” The Secret Service said it investigated nearly 7,500 threats against the people they protect last year. And, the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police told Scripps News in September the political threat atmosphere is the worst it has ever been for his agency.
In an effort to shed light on the ongoing threat, Scripps News spent months examining more than 100 reported cases of political violence from across the country dating back to 2019. Those cases included 60 separate federal prosecutions on charges of threatening a president or vice president — threats directed at former President Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Case records obtained by Scripps News reveal just how far some threats went. Police video from Wichita, Kansas, shows a 2023 incident in which a man named Cody McCormick stood in the street, shouting he would “f***ing kill Joe Biden,” and posted threats against the president on social media. His defense attorney said in a court filing he had lashed out against President Biden in an effort to get the mental health care he needed.
An Arizona man awaiting sentencing for threatening the president. Michael David Hanson had tweeted threats against President Biden and Vice President Harris on the social media platform X — once posting that they should resign or “your alternative is death brutally murdered.”
Evidence photos show a letter packed with ricin and mailed to then-President Trump in 2020 by a Canadian woman, Pascale Cecile Veronique Ferrier, who wrote, “If it doesn’t work, I’ll find a better recipe for another poison, or I might use my gun.” When police detained her at the border they said she had a gun, a knife, and ammunition. She was sentenced to more than 21 years in prison.
Scripps News also reviewed court records to find an extreme risk protection order filed in Colorado in 2020 against a man who police said posted numerous threats against Biden on Facebook. In one post, he contemplated killing the President on television. He was not prosecuted in connection with the threats but did face an unrelated state weapons charge, and police did remove his firearms under the court order.
The attack on Nelson, in Michigan, also did not result in criminal charges because police say the suspect took his own life shortly after the incident.
Nelson, 82, has campaign signs stored in his garage, and he pointed to two spots in his flag-lined front yard where he plans to place them without fear – despite the harm he suffered the last time he put his political views on display.
“I’ll put a Trump sign on each end,” he said with a chuckle.
