Vem Miller: What we know about the man arrested near Trump's rally
LOS ANGELES - 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.
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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.
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"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.
The sheriff went into further detail about the "sovereign citizens" group to which Miller allegedly belonged.
"They are certainly considered a far-right group… I wouldn't say it's a militant group. It's just a group that doesn't believe in government and government control. They don't believe that the government and the laws apply to them. It's people trying to do harm. And thank God we prevented it," Bianco added.
The Southern Poverty Law Center describes "sovereign citizens" as those who consider themselves exempt from U.S. law, using "a variety of conspiracy theories and falsehoods to justify their beliefs and their activities, some of which are illegal and violent."
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"It's a political belief, if you will, that government rules and laws and in everything else that goes along with it doesn't apply to them. They don't ever want to answer our questions. They don't believe they need driver's licenses… they don't register their vehicles. This was an unregistered car that we had to go through VIN number and manufacturing process to verify that it was a legitimate car. It actually did belong to him [Miller]. It's just we know it was sold to him. It just was not ever registered," Bianco said.
"What my team was able to do and what we did for the attendees, I was completely confident that there was absolutely nothing going to happen inside that facility. And I am extremely proud of what the deputies did and the buy in, the personal buy in that they took upon themselves to ensure the safety of our former president and the attendees of that rally," he said.
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The Riverside County Sheriff's Department is working alongside the FBI and Secret Service as the investigation continues.
Media members, as well as VIP ticket holders, were routed through a number of intersections manned by state and local law enforcement officers before arriving at a large, grassy area where drivers were asked to open hoods and trunks, and each vehicle was searched by a K-9 officer. Other general ticket holders were directed to a site roughly 3 miles away from the rally, where they were boarded onto buses and driven to the site.
Security is very tight at Trump rallies following two recent assassination attempts. Last month, a man was indicted on an attempted assassination charge after authorities said he staked out the former president for 12 hours and wrote of his desire to kill him.
The Florida arrest came two months after Trump was shot in the ear during an assassination attempt at his rally in Pennsylvania.
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"The U.S. Secret Service assesses that the incident did not impact protective operations and former President Trump was not in any danger," the US Attorney's Office, Secret Service, and FBI said in a joint federal statement Sunday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.