Police documents show Brad Parscale beat his wife and threatened her with a gun
Sworn police reports say the Trump Campaign’s senior advisor and former campaign manager Brad Parscale beats his wife and is a threat to harm her, and himself. In five narrative reports, officers detailed how Parscale may have also committed firearms infractions, a domestic violence simple battery, and resisted arrest.
Yesterday, Brad Parscale physically battered, before threatening Mrs. Candace Parscale with his gun after they had a verbal altercation, before resisting arrest when the Fort Lauderdale Police Department’s SWAT team tried to detain him. Officers removed ten firearms from the former Trump campaign manager’s home, including a rifle, a shotgun, and a pricey AR-15-style Daniel Defense Rifle.
News of Parscale’s arrest broke late last night without any other actual details after police detained him under Florida’s Baker Act, which allows a mental health hold of up to 72-hours for a person who is found to be a threat to themselves or others.
The Washington Press obtained an exclusive copy of Parscale’s sworn police incident reports and the calls for service report from the Fort Lauderdale PD. (embedded below)
These five narrative reports and the service logs paint a graphic portrait of a battered wife fleeing her home for her life—without anything in hand, not even her cellphone—after her drunken husband threatened her with a loaded gun inside their $2.4 million waterfront home.
Multiple Fort Lauderdale officers reported that Candace Parscale had numerous scratches and bruises on her arms, and specifically, contusions her cheek and forehead. Officers photographed Mrs. Parscale’s injuries and uploaded them to evidence.com. Here’s an excerpt from the report:
According to Officer Steven S. Smith’s report, he noted the Trump campaign official “racked the slide” of his gun, cocking the weapon to prepare it for firing “right in his wife’s presence. Candace Parscale became so afraid for her safety that she immediately fled…”
Smith reported that Parscale’s neighbor was an “independent witness” who lives a “couple houses down” and gave “credibility to the consistent storyline” and “also witnessing the bruising on Candace Parscale.”
In Florida, it is a first-degree misdemeanor to improperly exhibit a firearm “in a rude, careless, angry, or threatening manner, not in necessary self-defense.” Parscale was not arrested or cited for any weapons violations. The rest of Ofc. Smith’s report describes the incident from Candace Parscale’s perspective:
After Brad Parscale sent his wife fleeing for her life, she told officer T. Skaggs that she heard a “loud bang,” which she thought was a gunshot ringing from their home shortly after running away. She told officers that her husband didn’t commit suicide only because after she fled, he started loudly ranting and raving and making the family dog agitated.
Officer Skaggs contacted Parscale by phone and observed that his speech was slurred. When he refused to leave home, a SWAT Immediate Action Team got deployed to the posh residence situated only blocks from Fort Lauderdale’s famed Las Olas Boulevard.
While the SWAT team arrived, one of Brad Parscale’s friends on the police force placed a call to their mutual friend, Officer Christopher Wilson, advising the political operative was facing off with the heavily armed officers at his home. Wilson had just left his regular duty at a protest, and headed to his friend’s home “was advised that Brad was refusing to come out of his house to speak with them after threatening his wife with a gun.”
Then, Wilson convinced Parscale to leave his home and come to the edge of his driveway to speak with police, which he did with a beer in hand. His friend described Trump’s former campaign manager as “clearly intoxicated,” but didn’t write in his narrative how the political operative resisted arrest.
However, SWAT Officer Matthew Moceri filled in the blanks about the “armed barricaded subject,” whom he described as “substantially larger than himself” who “disobeyed” his five lawful commands to submit to an arrest. Here’s an excerpt from his report:
That forced Officer Moceri to arrest the larger man with a “double leg takedown” because he was “wearing shorts with pockets that could easily conceal a firearm.”
Regarding the arrest Officer Smith reported the Trump senior advisor emitted a “strong odor” which he thought was from alcohol, noting that a pat-down showed him to be unarmed, but that “one of Brad Parscale’s firearms that were recovered within the residence was small enough to be concealed in a pocket.” He also noted that only “after refusing to comply with the commands operators physically brought him to the ground to establish control and place him into custody.”
In other words, multiple officers tackled Brad Parscale to arrest him after he refused to comply with officers’ commands.
“Family and intimate assaults involving firearms are 12 times more likely to end in a fatality than those not associated with firearms,” according to the Florida Bar Journal, Households with guns are almost eight times more likely to involve a firearm homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance than homes without guns.”
In Florida, it is a misdemeanor to resist an officer without violence, although Mr. Parscale was not charged with any criminal offenses for firearms violations, simple battery, nor do the reports make clear why that is the case.
While in custody, Parscale told the officers that he wasn’t on any medication, nor suffer from any mental illnesses, although his wife told the officers without substantiation that he “suffers from PTSD.”
The officer on the scene still decided not to arrest Parscale and instead invoke the mental health hold because of “Bradley’s violent behavior, his alcohol consumption, his agitated mental state of mind, and his previous comments of suicide.”
Author’s note: You can prevent suicides by calling 1800-273-8255. Domestic violence survivors can call 1−800−799−7233 for help
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