Donald Trump speaks at the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA) Presidential Preference Convention at Rocketown on August 29, 2015, in Nashville, Tennessee. | Getty Authorities: Man at Las Vegas rally said he wanted to kill Trump

A man arrested Saturday at a Donald Trump rally in Las Vegas told authorities that he grabbed a local police officer's gun in order to kill the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, which he had been planning to do for more than a year.

In a complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Nevada by a Secret Service officer, a man named Michael Steven Sandford was charged with an act of violence on restricted grounds at Trump's rally at the Treasure Island Casino in Las Vegas.


The filing cites a Special Agent Swierkowski (his first name was not given), who said that Sandford had said he had lived in the United States for one and a half years, arriving in Hoboken, New Jersey, before going to the Ontario/San Bernardino, California, area. According to the report, Sandford was carrying a driver's license from the United Kingdom.

Sandford then said, according to the filing, that he drove to Nevada from California with the purpose of killing Trump after seeing reports that he would be holding an event in Las Vegas. After arriving in Las Vegas last Friday, Sandford said he went to a gun range to learn how to shoot a gun, which he said he had never done.

According to the report, Sandford was arrested after attempting to grab the officer's gun, saying that he thought the holster was unlocked. The man also said that he would attempt the same maneuver again and had been planning to attempt to kill the candidate for more than a year "but decided to act on this occasion because he finally felt confident about trying it."