Licensed security guard attacks Republican congressional candidate with a switchblade
Castro Valley, CA Sept 13 2018
A California security guard armed with a knife screaming ‘f*** Trump’ allegedly threatened to kill a Republican congressional candidate with a switchblade before fleeing after it failed to open.
Licensed security guard Farzad Vincent Fazeli, 35, allegedly ran towards Rudy Peters, who is a Navy veteran, in an ‘aggressive manner’ and threw a glass mug at him, prompting the 56-year-old candidate to wrestle the attacker to the ground.
Fazeli then stood up and reached into his pocket to reveal a switchblade before shouting ‘I’m going to kill you motherf*****!’ a court affidavit said. He retreated after realizing the knife would not open and was arrested at a nearby bank.
The alleged incident began inside Peters’ vendor booth at the Castro Valley Fall Festival at around 3.45pm on Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
‘All of a sudden we hear someone screaming, ‘f*** Trump, f*** Trump!” Peters remembered. He said Fazeli moved to the entrance of the booth and raised his middle finger.
Peters, who was sitting next to Republican state assembly candidate Joseph Grcar, said Fazeli appeared to be walking off but, ‘turned round and said, ‘I’ll show you’ before running at the booth.”
After Peters knocked Fazeli to the ground he clambered to his feet and got out his switchblade.
‘He’s screaming, ‘I’m gonna kill you, motherf*****!’ Peters said. ‘He had the knife, but the blade wouldn’t shoot out.’
Peters, a Trump loyalist who uses the president’s Make America Great slogan on his campaign homepage, grabbed a sign from a cupcake stall to use as a shield, but Fazeli then left. No one was hurt.
Peters’ campaign rival, incumbent Democrat Representative Eric Swalwell, tweeted his concern about the incident.
‘On Sunday, my opponent @PetersCongress was attacked at his campaign booth in Castro Valley. I’m glad to hear Mr. Peters is okay. But it’s NEVER okay to use violence to settle political disagreements (or any disagreement). Fortunately, @ACSOSheriffs arrested the suspect.’
Fazeli is licensed to work as a security guard in California but had previous convictions for battery and burglary.
Peters told the Chronicle: ‘It’s a shame. People are just polarized right now, and this country’s divided and it’s just a mess. It shouldn’t be that way.’
Fazeli, from Castro Valley, was charged on Tuesday with making criminal threats, possessing a switchblade, and exhibiting a deadly weapon
His sister, Natasha, gave offered an alternative account of what happened on Sunday, claiming her brother was ‘attacked’ by Peters.
‘My brother was attacked by Republican candidate Rudy Peters who threw my brother to the ground which caused him to bleed,’ she said. My brother was defending himself.
‘Peters is trying to spin this as a political attack against him when he was the one who started the violence.’
Fazeli is licensed to work as a security guard in California and recorded his jobs on Facebook as ‘security guard at Costco’ and ‘assistant manager at Shell gas station’.
The suspect regularly ranted against Trump on Facebook.
In September 2017, Hurricane Irma had killed 134 people after ravishing Florida and Puerto Rico when he posted it was ‘payback for voting Donald Trump’.
Fazeli had railed against Trump’s approach to gun control and referred to him as a ‘white militia spokesman’. He also posed in a photo shared in 2013 wearing a Bill Clinton t-shirt touting his successful 1996 presidential run.
