A Trump supporter’s speech was shut down on Tuesday in Loudoun County, Virginia when he vividly described the fictional death of a certain board member.
“And I was like, ‘Wow, that was aggressive,'” the aforementioned board member, Algonkian District Supervisor Juli Briskman, told NBC Washington. “‘That was pretty aggressive.'”
All of this was over a proposed ordinance to ban guns from public facilities, including public buildings, and rec centers. Local man Chris Rohland opposed the measure. Garbed in a red Trump “Keep America Great” shirt and legally possessing a gun, Rohland told the board a fictional story about a Black Lives Matter supporter firing a shotgun at a Trump supporter who was driving a Jeep.
“When the Jeep is close and parallel to her, she fires: boom!” he said, slapping his hand on the podium. In this story, the buckshot smashed the glass, “sending it into the driver’s head.” The “driver’s nerves” resulted in the vehicle veering into a crowd. In that hypothetical crowd? Briskman. The Jeep pinned her to a tree, killing her.
“Mr. Rohland,” said Loudoun County Board Chair Phyllis Randall. “Mr. Rohland. Mr. Rohland. Mr. Rohland. No. No. No. No. No. No.” She banged her gavel, cutting him off.
Briskman famously got fired from her job at a government contractor in 2017 after she was photographed flipping off the motorcade of President Donald Trump.
A woman on a bike (Briskman) gestures with her middle finger as a motorcade with US President Donald Trump departs Trump National Golf Course October 28, 2017 in Sterling, Virginia.
Briskman ended up winning a seat to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in 2019 as a Democrat.
In an interview with NBC Washington, Rohland asserted that the possible ordinance was “based on something that has not occurred.” He attempted to draw an equivalence, saying his story was also based on something that has not happened.
Briskman dismissed that argument, citing the 2019 mass shooting down in Virginia Beach, in which a gunman–an employee who just tendered his resignation–killed 12 people at a government building.
“So in fact, we don’t need a hypothetical to prove my point,” she said.
The board voted to write the ordinance. The final vote is pending.
[Images via screengrab/NBC Washington, BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images]
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