A teenager sporting a Donald Trump T-shirt was arrested on Saturday during a rally in Florida that supported Vice President Kamala Harris, after police reported that he punched a 70-year-old woman in the stomach.

The 17-year-old male, who wore a shirt depicting Trump with his middle finger raised against a backdrop of an American flag, reportedly hit a Harris supporter named Kathleen Tomasko, causing her to fall to the ground, according to both police and Tomasko.

The boy was apprehended after the police, contracted by the rally’s organizers, arrived at the event in Stuart, located on Florida’s Treasure Coast. He faces charges of battery against a person aged 65 or older, as stated by Stuart Police Department spokesperson Brian Bossio.

Witnesses told Bossio that the teenager was leaving another confrontation with a male supporter of Harris when he struck Tomasko, knocking her down.

Victim Says She Was Unaware of the Attack

Tomasko claimed that she did not provoke the teenager and did not hear him speak to her before the incident. In fact, she mentioned she wasn’t even aware he was approaching.

“I was just standing there, and people were shifting around, when this kid suddenly turned and punched me. I have no idea where he came from,” Tomasko recounted. “He hit me in the stomach and knocked me down, and I fell hard. Thankfully, two women were behind me, or else I might have hit my head.”

While Tomasko initially chose not to go to the hospital, she later expressed concern about possibly needing treatment after her hip hit the ground during the fall.

She noted that the teenager who punched her was one of a group of four she had noticed earlier at the rally.

“There were four young men who were clearly Trump supporters at a Harris rally,” Tomasko explained. “They were trading insults with the attendees, and I guess our people were egging them on too.”

The rally, which supporters named “Rally on the Bridge,” was part of a nationwide Women’s March, advocating for Harris as well as Amendment 4, a proposal aimed at adding protections for abortion rights to Florida’s state constitution.

Tomasko, who has participated in political events for years, stated that she had never experienced anything like this before.

“My girlfriend from Massachusetts called me and said, ‘Kathy, I can’t believe it. We’ve been doing rallies for years without anything like this happening,'” Tomasko recalled.

According to Bossio, no other arrests or violent incidents transpired during the event.

Escalating Violence in the 2024 Election Season

This incident marks the second arrest linked to political tensions in Florida in the days leading up to Election Day. On October 29, police apprehended an 18-year-old man in Neptune Beach for allegedly brandishing a machete at a woman representing the opposing political party at an early voting location.

This election cycle has been exceptionally contentious, with rising threats of violence across the country.

A recent study indicated that nearly one in three Republicans who favor Trump consider political violence justifiable, as opposed to one in four Republicans overall and one in six Americans. Experts have cautioned that this electoral process could lead to dangerous scenarios, as previously reported by YSL News. This marks the first presidential election since Trump’s refusal to accept his 2020 defeat, which has eroded trust in the electoral system and incited the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

In addition, Trump has survived two assassination attempts this year. He was shot in the ear in July by a gunman on a rooftop near a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. In September, the Secret Service opened fire on an suspect after spotting a firearm in the bushes near Trump’s golf course when he was present there.

This election season has also seen threats towards election workers and public officials. In October, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced legal actions in four separate cases.

• A man from Philadelphia was accused of threatening to “skin” a party official;
• An Alabama man was accused of threatening to execute election officials in Arizona;
• An Arizona resident faced charges for gunfire at a Democratic campaign office;
• And a man in California was charged with attempting to bomb a courthouse.

Moreover, ballot boxes in Washington and Oregon were set ablaze on October 28.