October 13, 2024 RSO Chad Bianco Press Conference

Speaker 1 0:35
We are good. Everyone ready? You? Chad, good afternoon. Thank you all for coming here today. I am Chad Bianco. I'm the sheriff of Riverside County, and we are obviously here to talk about an incident that occurred yesterday at the rally that former President Trump had in Coachella. There has been a lot of media stir, beginning last night with social media, and further on today about the arrest. And so I am here to give you as much information as I can. I will answer all of the questions that you have. Keep in mind that the information that I'm going to give you. May not be all of the information that I have, but because of what we're doing and because of the the investigation that will obviously continue concerning this, there are some things that I that I cannot give you, or that I that I will not give you, but I will do everything I can to answer your questions. So to begin with, yesterday afternoon, before former President Trump arrived to the rally, we made contact with it to an individual on the inner perimeter of our operation at the rally. As you can imagine, this was a very large event in regard to previous attempts on the former president's life, this was not something that we were taking lightly. We had a very detailed plan in place on how we were going to keep not only the former president safe, but all of the participants or the attendees of the rally safe. So in general terms, I will tell you that we had a a larger outside perimeter and then an inside perimeter that was completely controlled by us, by Riverside County Sheriff's deputies, and both of them served different purposes. We did not keep residents from their homes. We did not keep people that were traveling through the area from going through if they had a legitimate reason to go through. So the outside perimeter was basically to allow people in that we thought belonged there. The inside perimeter was to make sure and to make sure people were proceeding in the right direction. The way it worked yesterday is only people that were allowed with the inside the perimeter. The outside perimeter in a vehicle was if you lived there, or if you had documentation that said you were going to this rally in the form of an email with VIP credentials or press credentials, those vehicles were allowed in. There were no other vehicles allowed. So that outside perimeter are, I will give you his name, the name that we have, and I'm going to put an asterisk by it, as I explain this later, but we have his name as Vem, v, e m, Miller, M, I, L, L, E, R, and his birth date is 1026 of 1974 and the reason why I gave it to you like that is I will explain later. He approached the outside perimeter, gave all indications that he belonged there, that he was, that he had, that he was a participant that was allowed to get into VIP and to and and a press corps. And so he was allowed through that outer perimeter. As he got to the inside perimeter, where deputies were conducting, obviously a more thorough evaluation of the vehicles that were coming in, there were many irregularities that popped up. The deputy noticed that the interior of the vehicle was in quite disarray. The vehicle had a an obviously fake license plate, and that prompted further investigation from our deputy into why the person was where, why the person was there, and what he was doing. During that investigation, the deputy eventually found multiple passports with multiple names, multiple drivers license with different names. The vehicle was unregistered, and the license plate was what we in law enforcement would recognize as one that is homemade and indicative of a group of. Individuals that claim to be sovereign citizens, and we and assuming the deputy assumes that he would that he was part of of that identifying group. So during the investigation, obviously those identification documents were found in addition to a loaded handgun and a shotgun. Obviously, this was before the former president arrived. The person was taken into custody. He was eventually booked into jail on those charges, and eventually he was, he was released. He will, He will have to further his court case in the in the future. Right now, we are actively engaged in working with Secret Service and the FBI to ensure that this person is followed up on and all of the information that they can gather. I can tell you that from from my perspective, from from a state law enforcement agency's perspective, the firearms charges is what we arrested him for and booked him on anything further will come from the federal government. And quite frankly, I don't know if we will be a part of that. We will certainly be a part of that investigation and cooperating with them, but those charges, if any, will come from them. They will not come from us. With that being said, Is there any questions? Yes, sir, we talked

Unknown Speaker 6:30
to Mr. Miller this afternoon,

Speaker 2 6:36
and he said the accusations, or the belief that he planned to assassinate President Trump, for quote, complete bullshit. He said that he had a special access pass that was issued to him by a Republican group in Clark County, Nevada, and that when he rolled up to the checkpoint, he told the deputies that, in his words, as a courtesy, that that he had firearms in the trunk of his car.

Speaker 1 7:08
Devil comment on what he said, I will not comment on what he said and I or specifics that we learned or gained from from our contact with him. I uh, quite frankly, I'm not really concerned with the statement that he gave the media after he was released from custody. I can tell well, because it's irrelevant to me. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, there were a minimum of 25,000 people that entered past those deputies into that location that that had legitimate identification and weren't carrying guns. So I

Unknown Speaker 7:47
will just go from there. Yes, ma'am present,

Speaker 3 7:55
enterprise and then obviously just gave us all of that information. I'm just curious how you to that statement, given what you just looked like, about what you saw in the

Speaker 1 8:10
car? Yeah, so basically, I honestly, I will be honest with you. I don't remember saying that, but it certainly would be something I did say, because it's something that in the last 12 hours, we've talked about extensively of what happened, thank God. And by an act of really what we did in the week leading up to keeping that place secure, I certainly wouldn't want to be saying after the fact that I wish we would have done something to prevent that shooting, and there is absolutely no way that any of us are going to truly know what was in his head. I can tell you that none of the other probably 50,000 people that showed up yesterday for that event brought multiple passports with different names and guns, and if there is any further statement about whether or not he belonged there, the statement of him saying that he was given credentials to be there by someone else, that's that's not up to me to decide. I mean, we weren't. We didn't arrest him for going inside the facility. We arrest him for having guns, illegal guns in his car. The what his frame of mind was, all we can all really, all we can do is speculate, unless we truly just want to believe anything that he tells us, given everything

Speaker 3 9:36
that's happened leading up to the fundamental campaign so far, just quite a drama. I mean, a dramatic statement to make, given what we've seen

Unknown Speaker 9:46
so far, the dramatic statement for me to make, I

Unknown Speaker 9:49
guess there wasn't

Speaker 1 9:52
any, I mean, so this is what I'm glad of. This is what I am very glad of. I know that that the the presence that we had. Uh, at the rally with deputies, with snipers, with counter snipers, and Secret Service snipers and counter snipers. I am glad that we're not talking about this after we shot him. We get to talk about it before. And no matter what it's all going to be speculation about what his intentions were getting there. What we do know is he showed up with multiple passports with different names, an unregistered vehicle with fake license plate and loaded firearms. I if you're asking me right now, I probably did have deputies that prevented the third assassination attempt. If, if we are that politically lost, that we have lost sight of common sense and reality and reason, that we can't say that holy crap. What did he show up with all of that stuff for and loaded guns, and we're going to, and we're and I'm going to be accused of being dramatic. We have a serious, serious problem in this country, because this is common sense and reason i i saw some of you there yesterday. You didn't have guns and fake IDs. I don't know. I don't know how else to explain it? You were talking about the two parameters

Speaker 4 11:22
and how. I'm just curious, did he have the proper credentials to get past those? Did that check out? It was just what was in the car. That was the red flag. But the credentials

Speaker 1 11:38
get that asset. So if you were, if you went there, the credentials are, are come out at the very last minute, and they are very, very vague. So there's actually three different points of contact and entry. We had an outer perimeter and inner perimeter, and then you still have to go through secret service, metal detectors and final big screening to actually get inside the facility, and that is where they would verify whether those were real. And to be honest with you, that thing that you have on your phone, it's all whether or not they have you on a list. It's not just showing up with a piece of paper and saying, I'm in it's whether or not you really did apply through that website to get in Secret Service does an extremely good job of trying to prevent people that are trying to get those tickets to get inside the investigation.

Unknown Speaker 12:34
Did he say all this

Speaker 1 12:39
was no no. And then one thing about the I will confirm, you know, just because it was said of what him saying that someone else gave him a pass. Well, you don't get to give away passes to go to a rally of a former president or or even a, you know, the Vice President, going to her rallies. You can't. We don't get to share those things. I can't share it with my spouse, let alone with friends. So all of those things are red flags for us going in. None of those things made sense. So it wasn't that we could verify individual documents that we had, because there really isn't those things, and that would have been done at the final checkpoint going through that is completely run by Secret Service sheriff. Can you confirm that this

Unknown Speaker 13:22
suspect here, and then you all are currently

Speaker 3 13:26
investigating him, looking into his past. He's a member of the Republican Party and previously ranked for state assembly in Nevada. Second part of the question, have you heard from the Trump campaign Secret Service in response to the action statute

Speaker 1 13:40
deputies, I'll take the last one first that was, we certainly are still in contact with Secret Service and the FBI, because this is obviously something that occurred that we'll be continuing to go to we get to the bottom of it until, till there's a resolution to the entire thing, the Second thing and the second and third thing I knew this was going to happen. I couldn't care less what political party he belongs to. I honestly, I think that's the stupidest thing in the world, that we have to label something, and we're labeling this as politics. He was a lunatic. He was in, from my perspective, in law enforcement, he was, it's that group, if, in fact, it turns out that he is part of of the sovereign sovereign citizens group. They are certainly considered a far right group. I wouldn't from, in my own personal belief, I wouldn't say it's a militant group. It's just a group that doesn't believe in government and government control. They don't believe that the government and laws apply to them. So I think it's, it's fringe, one way or the other. I couldn't care less. It's, it's, it's people trying to do harm, and thank God we prevented it. Yes, with every single car that

Speaker 3 14:59
was entered the stage. I'm sure about the setup, but is every single car Check. This was the only car that drew

Speaker 1 15:05
attention. Wow. I'm sure there were multiple cars that drew attention, but and every single vehicle that made it into the the actual event, every single vehicle was checked. He did not make it into the event. He made it to our interior perimeter that was maybe 100 200 yards away from the actual interior perimeter. So he didn't get to the point where Secret Service would find him. We identified him, detained him, and eventually arrested him before he got to the actual event entrance, and that

Unknown Speaker 15:41
was about 102

Speaker 1 15:43
100 yards before. Please don't quote me on that, but yes, I mean, I think it's, it's roughly as I'm trying to imagine the entrance and where he was it. I think it's about a quarter of a mile, 250 yards. Maybe, I'm not 100% sure. President

Unknown Speaker 16:02
Trump, you and

Speaker 2 16:06
your family there during the rally. How close were you sitting to Him and who other you don't have to name one by name. But did you have other family members with you? I

Speaker 1 16:18
did have my family member there, family members there, and we were we were lucky enough and gracious enough to have VIP city seating, so we were relatively close. How far away was I from him? 40 yards. Thinking

Speaker 2 16:35
back to what might have happened, do you feel concerned for your safety or or your

Unknown Speaker 16:42
family? Or your family's

Speaker 1 16:43
safety. Now, I will tell you, as the Sheriff of Riverside County, and knowing what we know going into this event, that there had been two attempts on our former president's life, and the amount of people that were going to be coming to this in such a short notice, what my team was able to do and what we did for the for the for the goers to this event, for the attendees, I was completely confident that there was absolutely nothing going to happen inside that facility, and I am extremely or inside that venue, and I am extremely proud of of what the deputies did and the and the buy in, the personal buy in that they took upon themselves to ensure the safety of our former president and the the attendees of that rally. I was not concerned for myself at any point. It was, it was our intent to make sure that there was an outside perimeter and an inside perimeter, that no one that did not belong there that intended to do him harm or anyone else harm would be allowed inside that event, and we did exactly what we had hoped for. And in hindsight, looking back the planning that my team did, and the actions of my deputies into this is exactly what we had hoped for, and we know that we prevented something bad from happening. And it's irrelevant what that bad was going to be. Were there any

Speaker 3 18:14
adjustments to security after the discovery was made, especially with large scale event traffic backups and everything that you guys readjust what you were doing.

Speaker 1 18:25
No, I will tell you that when I was told that we had made an arrest and and the the brief particulars of what the arrest was, what it involved, I I really my first thought was, we did everything right. It worked. I was I was told where it was. I was I knew it was an outside perimeter, and I was not concerned at all. I was not concerned for anyone else's safety. I knew that the precautions that we put in, the measures that we put in, did exactly what they were supposed to do. The other part of your question, the aftermath, the people leaving. I cannot tell you. I've been told way too many times today and in the middle of the night that it didn't go very smoothly. There was a lot of people trying to leave at the same time, and logistically it that it wasn't a very It wasn't conducive to going smoothly. And as far as we know, there were no injuries, there were no incidents, there was no neighbors called to complain or anything like that. And as far as I know, everyone made a home safely. So two different questions. There are parts to it, but we did not do anything different. I will say, I take that back. We did. There was a there are a lot of people that have complained, or that have said or wondered why there are deputies in riot gear. We had deputies that were off site, that were ready for something to respond to something, should something happen. And. And they were never intended to come inside the facility, unless that happened afterward, when everything was over. And there it was obvious there were problems with people leaving, with people trying to get over fences, and those types of issues. We did bring those deputies in just as extra help in funneling people out. There was never any the only odd part about that was, was they were prepared all day in their riot gear, if you want to call it that, and that's how they showed up. It was, I mean, we got them there as quick as they could. There was never any we certainly didn't treat it like a riot situation. It wasn't. Everyone was very orderly in their in their efforts to leave, and we just ensured that no one got hurt, or everyone stayed out of the street, stay on the sides, and everything was orderly. But other than that, everything was fine, and as we went throughout the day yesterday, we didn't change anything. How many guns were found, what charges were

Speaker 4 21:01
filed? When is the arraignment? To related

Speaker 1 21:05
to this? There were two guns and multiple boxes of ammunition. For both, there was a handgun and a shotgun, and he was cited for the gun with they were unregistered firearms. So he was cited for the unregistered loaded firearms in a vehicle, and he was those are state crimes, and he was released on those crimes, he was booked into jail and released with a promise to appear at a future date in court and and I'm sorry I don't know what that date is it. I'm sure on our on our Jim's information, it will show when his next court date

Speaker 1 21:49
is? It semantically, there's, I can't comment on whether or not there is an actual physical fake pass. He claimed to be a journalist, and he claimed to have VIP status at the event that got him into the perimeter. And then when that was, when that, when that investigation was continued by the Deputy i that didn't necessarily materialize. So other than his words of saying he was a journalist and that he was there as a media I can't tell you that there was that he gave us a document that said I'm the media, and we said that was fake. Verify

Unknown Speaker 22:31
that Instagram

Speaker 1 22:36
account that I as of yet I have not I know they're working on it and and someone may have tried to tell me, but I didn't bring my phone, and that's how they would have known. They would have notified me. I know we're actively trying to track that down, as well as Secret Service and the FBI, but our investigation is relatively done. The continuation will be a cooperation between us, the Secret Service and the FBI, more than likely, federal charges like that would be headed by the FBI. I can't say that for sure, but it's a combination of all three. And I will say the the working relationship and the the effort that we, all the federal agencies and the sheriff's office put into this going in was seamless. We the communication is great. I have no complaints, and it's certainly by me telling you it's someone else's investigation. That's just the nature of a federal crime. If they are ever able to prove that it was assassination attempted, and I'm not saying they're going to be able to, but anything like that would be federal the state crimes are the weapons charges that we arrested him for someone posted on social media

Speaker 2 23:47
that both you and me were apparently, coincidentally at a premiere of a moving line in the sand

Unknown Speaker 23:57
title like that. You

Speaker 1 24:00
don't know this guy. No, I do not. I have, I have absolutely no idea. When

Speaker 4 24:04
you originally stated his name, you

Speaker 1 24:08
said, so the yes and I maybe I just didn't emphasize that enough at the end. So the name that he has given us is Vem Miller. That's what he was booked under. But the he had multiple passports and IDS with different names. And then

Unknown Speaker 24:22
also you stated at their event

Speaker 2 24:24
there was 25,000 people. Believe you said 50,000 we have a better

Speaker 1 24:28
calendar. We don't have a total yet. There are two different numbers, though, because of the amount of people that were actually made it inside the venue. And then the way it works is once the once the former president takes the stage, nothing else moves. So if you weren't in by then, you did not get in. And the we do know that there were plenty of pre screenings that had happened at parking lots before, and we know that there were multiple 1000s of people. It that did not get in based on timing. So we have an idea of how many people were inside and outside, and we don't have an exact number, but that's, that's the reason why I would have said two different things, sovereign citizens. It's, it's a, I don't know any in a law enforcement world, that's what we that's what we call them. That's what they call themselves, sovereign citizens. And it's just a, it's a a political belief, if you will, that that government rules and laws and everything else that goes along with it doesn't apply to them. So this is an organized

Unknown Speaker 25:40
group, they have a lot of

Speaker 1 25:44
members here. I won't say they have a lot law enforcement across the country. We train on how to deal with them just because of the verbiage that they use when they interact with us. They believe that they don't have they're not necessarily toward us violent or confrontational, but we it's obvious. They don't ever want to answer our questions. They don't believe they need driver's licenses. They don't believe you know this, then this vehicle goes along with it. They don't register their vehicles. This was an unregistered car that we had to go through VIN number and manufacture process to verify that it was a legitimate car. It actually did belong to him. It's just, we know it was sold to him. It just was not ever registered. Sometimes they do, but I wouldn't say, I can't say, as an organization as a whole, but obviously, like a lot of different groups, bad apples give a group a bad name, and there certainly are people that are but I'm not going to say that that group as a whole is a violent group. You don't know what this was,

Speaker 4 26:47
or what it might have been, but when you see the vehicle with two guns, boxes of ammunitions, different license plates and passports, and somebody claims to be with this group that you've described as being right wing first, that goes through

Speaker 1 27:06
your mind as well. I need to thank that Deputy for doing his job. That was the first thing that went through my mind. And it was like I probably said to somebody or around somebody that's been either printed or reprinted in social media that I truly do believe that we prevented another assassination attempt, and it was it was solely by our effort of keeping those type of people out, a high capacity magazine. It was for the handgun. The high capacity magazine was for the handgun.

Unknown Speaker 27:47
Did you also say driver's licenses?

Unknown Speaker 27:51
Yes, tiny variations

Speaker 1 27:52
of the Name or like, I won't get into specifics, but it was both of you. The question that you're asking about another

Speaker 2 27:58
individual went to a potential bomb threat at the

Speaker 1 28:04
event as well. We know that there were no not linked to an individual or specifics that I can give you. We are aware of our dogs and federal dogs that that hit on people or things that we ended up not letting in, but I don't, I don't have any specifics on anything like that. There was nothing that came, nothing that rose to this level,

Unknown Speaker 28:33
anything else.

Speaker 1 28:35
Okay, thank you for coming. Thank you.

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