Florida Trump Supporter Arrested After Allegedly Punching Woman at Harris Rally
A 17-year-old supporter of former President Donald Trump has been charged with battery after a 70-year-old woman was allegedly punched to the ground Saturday during a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in Florida.
The teenager, wearing a Trump T-shirt, allegedly hit Kathleen Tomasko in the stomach, knocking her to the floor and leaving her with hip pain.
Tomasko, a longtime participant in political events, recounted that the blow caught her entirely off guard, telling local news website TCPalm: “I’m standing there, and people are moving. This kid just turned around and punched me. I don’t know where he came from.”
The alleged attacker’s T-shirt featured an image of Trump raising his middle finger in front of an American flag, said TCPalm, and the teenager had been antagonizing people at the Stuart County rally with some friends, according to Tomasko.
A protest of women supporting Kamala Harris and Amendment 4 in West Palm Beach, Florida, one of several concurrent protests across the state, November 2, 2024. At the protest in Stuart, Florida, a teenage boy wearing a Donald Trump shirt allegedly punched a 70-year-old woman.
Giorgio Viera/Getty Images
“There were these four boys that were, you know, Trumpers, and it’s a Harris rally,” she said. “They were going back and forth and antagonizing people.”
Tomasko was attending the event, organized in conjunction with the nationwide Women’s March, on the Roosevelt Bridge in Martin County, Florida, and the rally was backing both Harris and Amendment 4, a Florida ballot measure proposing abortion rights protections in the state constitution.
Stuart Police Department spokesperson Brian Bossio confirmed that the teen was charged with battery on a person aged 65 or older, a felony under Florida law.
“Several people pointed out a male who was walking away from the area as someone who battered or struck a woman,” Bossio told TCPalm, adding that he had detained the teen on-site following the incident.
The impact left Tomasko on the ground, and though she initially declined medical treatment, she later considered seeking care due to hip pain from the fall. The confrontation reportedly stemmed from an earlier verbal exchange between the 17-year-old and other rally-goers.
Bossio told Newsweek that the 17-year-old was arrested, processed and turned over to his parents.
Tomasko said that, despite her years of activism, she had never experienced an incident like this. She said that a friend from Massachusetts expressed disbelief, saying, “We’ve done rallies like this for how many years, and nothing like this ever happens.”
This was not the only instance last week involving a Trump-supporting teenage male being violent to an elderly woman supporting Harris in Florida.
Last Wednesday, 18-year-old Caleb James Williams was arrested and charged with aggravated assault for brandishing a machete at two women, aged 71 and 54, who were campaigning for Harris in Neptune Beach, Florida.
Police said Williams was antagonizing the women with seven other teenage males who were waving Trump flags.
Update 11/4/24, 11:16 a.m. ET: This story was updated for additional information.