Florida Woman Attacked 72-Year-Old Over MAGA Hat: Police
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content.
A Florida woman has been charged over an alleged attack on a 72-year-old man for wearing a MAGA hat.
Laura Garrett, 33, was arrested on Tuesday, accused of hitting him in the back of the head with a can following an argument, according to police affidavits obtained by Newsweek.
MAGA—or Make America Great Again—is a slogan popularized by President Donald Trump.
Newsweek reached out to the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office and Largo Police Department via email on Friday.
What To Know
The alleged altercation took place at a park in Largo, Florida, when Garrett approached the victim to question him about why he supported President Donald Trump.
"The defendant and the 72-year-old victim were at the park when a verbal argument broke out between them regarding the victim wearing a "MAGA" hat," an affidavit read.
"During the altercation, the defendant struck the victim on the back of the head/shoulder area with a can she was holding. She then jumped over a fence and began walking away. This incident was witnessed by an independent witness, who later provided a sworn statement."
Garrett admitted to confronting the 72-year-old and pouring the contents of a can on his head, but denied throwing the can at him, according to the arrest report.
Laura Garrett.
Laura Garrett.
Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.
When Largo police officers attempted to escort Garrett to a different area of the park, she refused and was put in handcuffs, according to a police report.
Police said she purposefully dropped her full body weight to the ground and continued to resist by kicking, and was eventually restrained with a hobble and escorted by four officers.
While police were attempting to escort Garrett to towards the patrol vehicles, she wrapped both of her legs around one of the officers, causing him to fall to the ground and injure his knee, according to the report.
Garrett was arrested and charged with one count of battery on a person 65 years or older, one count of battery on a law enforcement officer and one count of obstructing or resisting an officer without violence, according to Pinellas County Jail records.
She was released from jail on Wednesday night.
What Happens Next
The case has been forwarded to the State Attorney's office for prosecution, the Largo Police Department said. It is unclear at this time whether or not it will go to court.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Axios
27 minutes ago
- Axios
Freshman wishlist: Adam Schiff vs. Trump 2.0
Sen. Adam Schiff has some advice for President Trump when attempting to demean him: Pick one nickname. Why it matters: Schiff rose to cable TV stardom as an anti-Trump foil while leading the first impeachment. "Shifty Schiff" or "Watermelon Head" learned to give as good as he got. Trump called Schiff names. Schiff ensured he was impeached — twice. "[T]he cardinal rule of nicknames is: Just stick with one," Schiff told Axios in an interview. Schiff translated his MAGA notoriety into a safe Senate seat, first battling through a tough, expensive primary. Now he's ready for round two with Trump. "I've been thrust back into a lot of that responsibility again because what he's trying to do in the second term is even worse than what he tried to do in the first term," Schiff said. Zoom out: Before Trump dominated the national conversation, Schiff considered himself a fairly nonpartisan national security expert. He endorsed Jim Mattis for Secretary of Defense in 2016 when other Democrats didn't. Schiff had hoped for another rebrand in the Senate. "I was expecting a Biden or a Harris presidency, and the ability to just focus exclusively on what positive things I could get done," he told Axios. What to watch: He is enjoying visiting redder areas of the state after spending years representing just a slice of heavily Democratic Los Angeles. He shared about one such visit in the state's northeast. "I knew I had made progress when one of the farmers looked at me and said, 'I don't know why he calls you watermelon head. You have a perfectly normal-sized head.'" But it's doubtful he'll revert back to a less partisan posture, given the direction of Trump's second term. Driving the news: Two days after our interview, Trump deployed National Guard troops to tamp down on ICE protests in Los Angeles in opposition to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.). "This action is designed to inflame tensions, sow chaos, and escalate the situation," Schiff posted on X on Saturday. He also repeatedly called for violence to stop at protests. "Assaulting law enforcement is never ok," he posted Sunday. Zoom in: Schiff tried to pass a resolution shortly before our interview to stop the administration from stripping civil rights leader Harvey Milk's name from a Navy ship. He has demanded financial disclosures from the White House, written letters to stop DOGE from shutting down USDA offices and tried to block the repeal of EV rules. "Most of my days are spent trying to walk this line between stopping the administration from violating the law and ignoring the Constitution on the one hand," Schiff said, "and continuing to deliver for Californians..." Schiff recognizes that his clashes altered his career trajectory. "I have my brand pre-Trump and my brand post-Trump," Schiff told Axios. Between the lines: Schiff's leadership in the House's first Trump impeachment made him a mortal enemy to Trump and his allies, leading to a "weirdly personal" dynamic, Schiff said.
Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Editorial: MAGA morphs into Make America Cruel Again
The horrifying weekend scenes in Los Angeles — National Guard on the streets, the governor of California threatening to sue the president of the United States for breaching state sovereignty, vehicles set on fire, attacks on law enforcement officers, ordinary people getting hurt, kids seeing all kinds of horrors from people they have been taught to trust — were deeply disturbing to the point where we wondered how on God's green earth this country can hold it together for three-and-a-half more years of this level of presidential overreach, this amount of hatred and division. But we do know this. We sure don't want to see any kind of repeat of those scenes in Chicago. Everyone had better pick their words carefully. Nobody can argue that Donald Trump, as president of the United States, does not have the authority to deport those who crossed the border without authorization and who have received due process in a court of law. Nobody can argue that he did not disclose his intention to do so during the presidential campaign. Nobody who believes in the rule of law can say that federal agents should be physically prevented from following their orders (withholding cooperation is something entirely different). And nobody can say that the Trump administration is the first to remove such people. But the brute nature of the methodology, the scale of the operation and the horrifying accompanying theatrics should shock every American, even those who consider themselves part of the MAGA movement. They supposedly signed up for American greatness, not abject cruelty. This is the danger of a fundamentally performative president, a leader for whom the political benefits of calling in the National Guard clearly outranks the far greater risks, which is that such a decision destabilizes a city and forces everyone into ever more extreme positions. The scorched earth rhetoric from federal officials has been like something out of dystopian fiction. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, posted on social media that 'this is a fight to save civilization.' On the contrary, Mr. Miller. His ultimate boss, Trump, said 'a once great American City, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals,' which is so much balderdash, mere red-meat language designed for political purposes and not effective immigration policy, which requires disincentives, sure, but also nuance, complexity and a sense of the historical realities. There was a mandate from the American people for securing the border, deporting those who break or have broken the law and for fixing immigration. There was no mandate for brutality. We lay some of the blame for what happened in Los Angeles this weekend on both political parties, given that it is at least in part a consequence of their collective failure to pass any kind of comprehensive immigration reform that would have secured the borders, prevented overwhelming numbers of unauthorized folks entering and offered a fair and compassionate solution for the many people here without legal permission who have lived productive U.S. for years. That's on Democrats, who allowed the border to get out of control during the first part of the Biden administration, as well as Republicans. Many left-wing Democrats came to favor de facto open borders over the past several years, or at least no criminal-style enforcements of immigration violations, and Democrats knew they could not get that past a plurality of Americans in a general election. Rather than confront that internal division and reach a compromise, they punted for years. By the time Trump had total fealty from the Republican Party and could (and did) derail any such effort merely for his own political gain, it was too late. And now, with cruel, scorched-earth zealots in charge, we have the worst of all possible worlds for America's great cities and for many people whose only crime was trying to escape poverty and seeking out a better life. Anyone with even an ounce of common sense could see that Trump's apparent intention of deporting 12 million people in the country without legal permission, concentrated as they are in the core of America's biggest cities, is both unethical and impractical, given the above. The current rhetoric makes no distinction between recent arrivals and those who have lived here productively for years, and it paints otherwise law-abiding folks with the same brush as criminals, which is un-American. Leaders of blue cities and governors of blue states now find themselves caught somewhere between wanting to stop these deportations, over which they know they have no formal legal control, and their Welcoming Cities ordinances that forbid only cooperation with federal authorities. They, too, have political considerations to weigh. But they should not be the prime concern. Caught in the middle are local police departments, whose job is not to aid federal immigration officers but to maintain law and order. On the one hand, they have to deal with the tactics of an increasingly militarized ICE, as aided by the National Guard. They also have to deal with progressive politicians ready to accuse them of cooperation at every juncture. No, cops should not leave when protesters (or rioters, depending on your preferred politics) take to the streets. They have a different job to do, which is to keep our cities safe. So we are serving advance notice, Mr. President, that we don't want to see the National Guard, or the Marines, or any other branch of the U.S. military on the streets of Chicago. We urge you to dial down the rhetoric and the threats and we call on Democratic officials to do the same, which is not to say they should refrain from disagreeing with the manner of these actions. We urge those in your administration to negotiate with local officials, to treat everyone with dignity and respect, and to understand, for the love of God, that our children are watching and listening. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@
Chicago Tribune
an hour ago
- Chicago Tribune
Editorial: MAGA morphs into Make America Cruel Again
The horrifying weekend scenes in Los Angeles — National Guard on the streets, the governor of California threatening to sue the president of the United States for breaching state sovereignty, vehicles set on fire, attacks on law enforcement officers, ordinary people getting hurt, kids seeing all kinds of horrors from people they have been taught to trust — were deeply disturbing to the point where we wondered how on God's green earth this country can hold it together for three-and-a-half more years of this level of presidential overreach, this amount of hatred and division. But we do know this. We sure don't want to see any kind of repeat of those scenes in Chicago. Everyone had better pick their words carefully. Nobody can argue that Donald Trump, as president of the United States, does not have the authority to deport those who crossed the border without authorization and who have received due process in a court of law. Nobody can argue that he did not disclose his intention to do so during the presidential campaign. Nobody who believes in the rule of law can say that federal agents should be physically prevented from following their orders (withholding cooperation is something entirely different). And nobody can say that the Trump administration is the first to remove such people. But the brute nature of the methodology, the scale of the operation and the horrifying accompanying theatrics should shock every American, even those who consider themselves part of the MAGA movement. They supposedly signed up for American greatness, not abject cruelty. This is the danger of a fundamentally performative president, a leader for whom the political benefits of calling in the National Guard clearly outranks the far greater risks, which is that such a decision destabilizes a city and forces everyone into ever more extreme positions. The scorched earth rhetoric from federal officials has been like something out of dystopian fiction. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, posted on social media that 'this is a fight to save civilization.' On the contrary, Mr. Miller. His ultimate boss, Trump, said 'a once great American City, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals,' which is so much balderdash, mere red-meat language designed for political purposes and not effective immigration policy, which requires disincentives, sure, but also nuance, complexity and a sense of the historical realities. There was a mandate from the American people for securing the border, deporting those who break or have broken the law and for fixing immigration. There was no mandate for brutality. We lay some of the blame for what happened in Los Angeles this weekend on both political parties, given that it is at least in part a consequence of their collective failure to pass any kind of comprehensive immigration reform that would have secured the borders, prevented overwhelming numbers of unauthorized folks entering and offered a fair and compassionate solution for the many people here without legal permission who have lived productive U.S. for years. That's on Democrats, who allowed the border to get out of control during the first part of the Biden administration, as well as Republicans. Many left-wing Democrats came to favor de facto open borders over the past several years, or at least no criminal-style enforcements of immigration violations, and Democrats knew they could not get that past a plurality of Americans in a general election. Rather than confront that internal division and reach a compromise, they punted for years. By the time Trump had total fealty from the Republican Party and could (and did) derail any such effort merely for his own political gain, it was too late. And now, with cruel, scorched-earth zealots in charge, we have the worst of all possible worlds for America's great cities and for many people whose only crime was trying to escape poverty and seeking out a better life. Anyone with even an ounce of common sense could see that Trump's apparent intention of deporting 12 million people in the country without legal permission, concentrated as they are in the core of America's biggest cities, is both unethical and impractical, given the above. The current rhetoric makes no distinction between recent arrivals and those who have lived here productively for years, and it paints otherwise law-abiding folks with the same brush as criminals, which is un-American. Leaders of blue cities and governors of blue states now find themselves caught somewhere between wanting to stop these deportations, over which they know they have no formal legal control, and their Welcoming Cities ordinances that forbid only cooperation with federal authorities. They, too, have political considerations to weigh. But they should not be the prime concern. Caught in the middle are local police departments, whose job is not to aid federal immigration officers but to maintain law and order. On the one hand, they have to deal with the tactics of an increasingly militarized ICE, as aided by the National Guard. They also have to deal with progressive politicians ready to accuse them of cooperation at every juncture. No, cops should not leave when protesters (or rioters, depending on your preferred politics) take to the streets. They have a different job to do, which is to keep our cities safe. So we are serving advance notice, Mr. President, that we don't want to see the National Guard, or the Marines, or any other branch of the U.S. military on the streets of Chicago. We urge you to dial down the rhetoric and the threats and we call on Democratic officials to do the same, which is not to say they should refrain from disagreeing with the manner of these actions. We urge those in your administration to negotiate with local officials, to treat everyone with dignity and respect, and to understand, for the love of God, that our children are watching and listening.
