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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Charlie Kirk’s murder is the latest example of violence tearing | |
through American politics | |
By Chris Boyette, CNN | |
Updated: | |
4:00 AM EDT, Sun September 14, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
The of conservative activist this week on a Utah college campus marks | |
the latest example of violence tearing through American politics across | |
centuries and the ideological spectrum. | |
While history tends to highlight presidential assassinations, the | |
targeting of national figures like and and, more recently, and public | |
has upended the tenor and the terms of democratic debate in a country | |
with than people. | |
Through the first half of 2025, the US saw some 150 politically | |
motivated attacks, said Michael Jensen, a University of Maryland who | |
tracks terrorism incidents. That’s nearly twice as many as the same | |
period last year – a spike he said reflects growing discontent with | |
the political system and its policies. | |
“What we’re witnessing right now is not the product of a single | |
group or ideology but perhaps evidence of growing widespread civil | |
unrest,” Jensen said Thursday. | |
Here are some cases: | |
June 14, 2025 | |
A masked man dressed as a police officer went to the home of the | |
Minnesota House of Representatives’ top Democrat and fatally shot | |
state and her husband as police tried to stop what Democratic Gov. Tim | |
Walz later called “.” | |
The same man had just shot and wounded Democratic state Sen. John | |
Hoffman and his wife at their home, police said. A list found in the | |
gunman’s abandoned car largely included names of Democrats and | |
figures with ties to Planned Parenthood or the abortion rights | |
movement, including Rep. and Sen. . | |
After a nearly , police captured a suspect, who has to six federal | |
charges, including stalking and murder, which could carry the . He is a | |
conservative who for Republican President Donald Trump and strongly | |
opposed abortion rights, a friend told CNN. are taking a back seat for | |
now. | |
April 13, 2025 | |
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro – with his wife, their four children, | |
two dogs and another family – were forced to flee after someone threw | |
into the governor’s mansion, severely damaging the home hours after | |
the family hosted a Passover dinner. | |
The suspect said he in part because of what he believed were | |
Shapiro’s views on the war in Gaza, search warrants show. The | |
Pennsylvania man faces seven charges, including attempted homicide, | |
burglary, attempted assault and arson. | |
September 15, 2024 | |
A man was soon after a rifle was in the bushes along the perimeter of | |
the Trump International Golf Club in Florida while Trump, campaigning | |
for a second term, was playing. The , who owns a small business in | |
Hawaii, was for trying to kill Trump, among other federal charges. His | |
trial . | |
July 13, 2024 | |
A young Pennsylvania man at Trump during a re-election rally in the | |
state, injuring the presidential candidate, wounding two rally | |
attendees and killing another. Secret Service agents killed the gunman | |
at the scene. | |
October 28, 2022 | |
A man who reportedly of people he believed were “systematically and | |
deliberately” destroying American freedom and liberty broke into the | |
San Francisco of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, planning to kidnap and | |
hurt her, authorities said. | |
But she was not home, and he instead attacked the Democrat’s husband, | |
Paul Pelosi, , fracturing his skull and knocking him unconscious. | |
The assailant was on state charges to life in prison without the | |
possibility of parole and in a federal case to 30 years for assault and | |
20 years for attempted kidnapping, with the sentences running | |
concurrently. | |
June 8, 2022 | |
Just after 1 a.m., a man near the Maryland home of Supreme Court | |
Justice , a Trump nominee, called 911 to say he was having suicidal | |
thoughts and had a firearm in his suitcase, a states. The man said he | |
had traveled from California to kill “a specific United States | |
Supreme Court Justice,” an FBI affidavit says. | |
The man was upset about the high court’s overturning Roe v. Wade and | |
feared the conservative judge would “side with Second Amendment | |
decisions that would loosen gun control laws,” the affidavit says. He | |
also was a tactical knife, a Glock 17 pistol, two magazines, | |
ammunition, pepper spray and zip ties, the FBI said. | |
The man was arrested and charged with attempting or threatening to | |
kidnap or murder a US judge. He to attempted murder of a Supreme Court | |
justice and is due to be sentenced October 3. | |
January 6, 2021 | |
Minutes after a fiery speech by Trump filled with and a call to his | |
followers to march to the US Capitol and “fight like hell,” | |
thousands as Congress gathered to certify Democratic former Vice | |
President Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. | |
Captured on live television, rioters the Capitol and breached the | |
Senate floor. | |
Five people and 140 police officers were injured before the | |
insurrection was quelled. Trump nearly every convicted rioter and asked | |
the federal court in Washington, DC, to dismiss pending cases. A second | |
House subcommittee is the security disaster after a first Trump’s | |
efforts to overturn the 2020 election led to the violence. | |
October 2020 | |
were by the FBI and state police and charged in connection with a plot | |
to , Gretchen Whitmer, and take over the state government. They were | |
angry at Whitmer over restrictions she put into place to mitigate the | |
spread of , court records show. | |
Six were on federal charges, and eight were charged at the state level. | |
Nine pleaded guilty or were in the case, with several getting lengthy | |
prison sentences. | |
November 3, 2017 | |
Sen. Rand Paul was attacked by a neighbor and former colleague as he | |
mowed the lawn at his home in Kentucky. The Republican suffered , he | |
said. | |
The neighbor, who denied any political motivations in the attack, to | |
assaulting a member of Congress was sentenced to behind bars. Paul also | |
sued the man and was more than $580,000. | |
June 14, 2017 | |
Rep. Steve Scalise, a congressional staffer, a lobbyist and a member of | |
the Capitol police were shot in Alexandria, Virginia, during for a | |
charity baseball game. | |
At least six people, including Scalise and Rep. Roger Williams, were | |
hospitalized. The gunman died after a shootout with authorities. | |
Scalise’s internal organs were damaged, and he underwent surgeries, | |
hospital staff said, before recovering and to Congress. | |
January 8, 2011 | |
Rep. suffered a serious brain injury when a man shot her point-blank in | |
the head while she met with constituents outside a grocery store near | |
Tucson, Arizona. Six people were killed in the attack and 13 wounded. | |
Giffords, a Democrat, was the main target, authorities said. | |
The shooter pleaded guilty to 19 charges in exchange for the government | |
not seeking the death penalty. He was to seven consecutive life terms | |
plus 140 years, with no possibility of parole. | |
2011-2014 | |
An Iraq War veteran who in 2014 jumped the White House fence and ran | |
into the building with a knife was sentenced to 17 months in . Another | |
man who tried a year earlier to filled with knives and bullets into a | |
White House security gate a 35-month prison sentence. | |
And after shots were fired at the White House in 2011, an Idaho man | |
admitted to trying to kill Democratic President Barack Obama and was to | |
25 years in prison. | |
1981-2005 | |
After a grenade thrown toward GOP President in 2005 in Eastern Europe | |
failed to detonate, a Georgian citizen was convicted and sentenced to | |
life in prison. | |
In another case of bullets fired at the White House, a Colorado man was | |
found guilty of the attempted assassination of Democrat in 1994 and to | |
40 years in prison. | |
Another overseas plot – to kill former Republican President in 1993 | |
in Kuwait – was foiled, with a Kuwaiti court 13 defendants of related | |
crimes and sentencing some to death. | |
And Republican Ronald Reagan outside the Hilton in Washington, DC, | |
after giving a speech. | |
The gunman was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent decades | |
at a mental hospital before he was released in 2016 and from court | |
restrictions in 2022. | |
All presidents have faced threats, and all former presidents also get | |
lifetime protection. | |
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