UPDATE: The Cumberland Sheriff’s Office has decided not to charge Donald Trump’s campaign for “crime of inciting a riot.”
Cumberland County Sheriff announces no charges will be filed against @realDonaldTrump for events at rally pic.twitter.com/Kf70PgRGlW
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 14, 2016
A North Carolina Police Department is considering charging Donald Trump with inciting a riot over violence during last week’s rally in Fayetteville.
Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office told WRAL Monday that they are considering filing the charges. A statement from the Sheriff’s Office attorney read aloud to The Washington Post said, “We are continuing to look at the totality of these circumstances . . . including the potential of whether there was conduct on the part of Mr. Trump or the Trump campaign which rose to the level of inciting a riot.”
During the Fayetteville rally, a man being escorted out of the arena by police was sucker-punched by a 78-year-old attendee, Trump has since said he is looking into paying the elderly man’s legal fees. (RELATED: Trump Protestor Sucker-Punched [VIDEO])
North Carolina state law defines a riot as: “a riot is a public disturbance involving an assemblage of three or more persons which by disorderly and violent conduct, or the imminent threat of disorderly and violent conduct, results in injury or damage to persons or property or creates a clear and present danger of injury or damage to persons or property.”
The state law continues to say, “any person who willfully incites or urges another to engage in a riot, and such inciting or urging is a contributing cause of a riot in which there is property damage in excess of fifteen hundred dollars ($1,500) or serious bodily injury, shall be punished as a Class F felon.”