Selfie stick-wielding Trump supporter arrested at Elizabeth Warren event

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Jan. 5, 2019 / 9:36 PM GMT

By Alex Seitz-Wald

STORM LAKE, Iowa — A supporter of President Donald Trump was arrested after allegedly hitting another attendee with a selfie stick outside an event Saturday for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. The senator is on her first swing of Iowa as she explores a 2020 presidential bid.

As Warren mingled with the overflow crowd outside a roundtable event, witnesses told NBC News the Trump supporter unfurled a Trump banner and began yelling, which led to an altercation with other attendees. When one man tried to pull down the banner, witnesses said the Trump supporter struck the man on the head with a selfie stick.

The protester, whom police identified as a 58-year-old Minnesota native, was quickly handcuffed. He yelled “Trump 2020!” before being placed in the back of a police car and taken to the county jail.

“Police observed a person, who was in the overflow crowd outside of the facility, allegedly become very vocal while Senator Warren was outside greeting the attendees,” the Storm Lake Police Department said in a statement, adding that he “became aggressive and attempted to assault others in the crowd.”

He was was charged with disorderly conduct, a simple misdemeanor, and held on a $300 bond, the statement added.

Police said there were no injuries reported.

The incident occurred during the third stop of Warren’s tour of the first-in-the-nation caucus state, where she has been greeted warmly by relatively large crowds for such an early stage of the race. Warren is one of the first major candidates to officially explore a presidential campaign.

She did face one pointed question earlier Saturday in Sioux City from a woman who asked why Warren gave “Donald Trump more fodder to be a bully” by taking a DNA test to prove she has distant Native American ancestors.

Trump and other Republicans have long made an issue of Warren’s heritage, dubbing her “Pocahontas” and claiming she improperly benefited from affirmative action hiring in her previous job as a Harvard Law School professor.

“You know, I’m glad you asked that question. I genuinely am,” Warren responded to the woman, clearly prepared for the question.

“My decision was, I’m just going to put it all out there,” she said, while making it clear that she does not consider herself “a person of color” nor “a citizen of a tribe.”

“I can’t stop Donald Trump from what he’s going to do. I can’t stop him from hurling racial insults. I don’t have the power to do that,” Warren added. “But what I can do is I can be in this fight for all of our families. Because ultimately what 2020 is going to be about is not my family but the tens of millions of families across this country who just want a level playing field.”