We all saw this coming. Any reporter who has covered Donald Trump rallies since the summer has known for some time that violence on an important scale was inevitable.

The topic has come up often in conversations with other journalists. “Something really bad’s going happen,” a reporter said to me at an event for Marco Rubio in Georgia recently. I agreed, but assumed the initial violence would be against the media.

A recurring bit at Trump rallies begins with Trump pointing to the press section and unleashing a tirade. “Reporters, they’re the most dishonest people. They’re horrible people,” he says, often singling out a female reporter by name. “The media – they never show my crowds! They don’t want the world to see my crowds!”

At a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., Trump said he wouldn’t kill reporters, but did have to think about it. “I hate some of these people, I hate ’em,” Trump said. “I would never kill them. I would never do that.” Then he waited a beat. “Uh, let’s see, uh? No, I would never do that.” The crowd loved it.

With that kind of invective coming from the podium, I wasn’t at all surprised when a photographer from TIME was grabbed by the throat and thrown to the ground by a security guard at a Trump event in Virginia. Or when, days before that, NBC’s Katy Tur, who covers the Trump campaign exclusively, tweeted about threats coming from a crowd where she was working. “Trump trashes press. Crowd jeers. Guy by press ‘pen’ looks at us & screams, “You’re a bitch!”