Report says man who drove into GOP tent didn’t like Donald Trump

In this Saturday, Feb. 8, 2020, image taken from video a voter registration tent lays on its side after Gregory Timm drove a van through it, in Jacksonville, Fla. The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said Sunday, Feb. 9, Timm was arrested in the incident. (WJXT News4Jax via AP)

“Someone had to take a stand … it was like someone sh—ing on your grave.”

That’s how a police report from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office characterized the stance of a 27-year-old Iowa transplant who menaced voter registration volunteers last weekend.

Gregory Timm, 27, was a stage hand by profession. But he will be ultimately remembered for an act of political theater that was all too real.

On the county party’s Twitter feed, it was reported a brown or gold minivan “accelerated into a crowd of volunteers at the Kernan Village shopping center.” The driver made an obscene gesture before speeding away, witnesses said.

With the police report now public record, Republicans messaged about the incident on Tuesday.

“The assailant’s own confession makes it clear that Saturday was a deliberate and politically motivated attack on supporters of President Trump. What happened in Jacksonville is completely reprehensible and unacceptable. Political violence has no place in our democratic process, and we will not bend to these thuggish acts,” said  Ronna McDaniel, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman.

“It is high time that the national media begin to act responsibly in this case and call this deranged criminal’s attack what has been clear: An obvious assault motivated by blind rage toward President Trump,” said Dean Black, chair of the local GOP.

Black, who said Republicans should get “revenge” at the ballot box during a press conference Monday that got national attention,  added that “with the release of a revised police report, the national media now has no place to hide. They must now cover this story honestly or abandon all pretenses of integrity.”

Black’s comments did not denote where the national media has been hiding.

Though Jacksonville Democrats were quick to denounce the attack, their messaging was ignored by Republicans, who have seized on the incident as an attack on the President himself.