A Small Town’s Tragedy, Distorted by Trump’s Megaphone
But the declaration appears to have mischaracterized the 911 call. And the prosecutor never presented evidence that showed Mr. Brandt told officers that he ran into the teen because of the argument or that he believed he was part of an extremist group. Five days after the incident, a captain in the North Dakota State Highway Patrol told reporters that his agency had concluded the killing was “not political in nature at all.”
Subsequent court filings and testimony instead revealed a murkier, more confused encounter.
In phone calls, Mr. Brandt and Mr. Ellingson both made a reference to some sort of political dispute. Both called family members during the encounter, and each described feeling threatened, according to court records.
Mr. Ellingson told his mother “some politics had got brought up” and Mr. Brandt “didn’t like what he had to say,” according to a state Bureau of Criminal Investigation agent who interviewed Mr. Ellingson’s mother. She recalled her son saying “something to the effect of, ‘They’re on to me. I should round up my cousins or my posse,’” the agent testified.
In his 911 call after he hit Mr. Ellingson, Mr. Brandt said the teenager had said “something about some Republican extremist group,” but he did not claim Mr. Ellingson was a member. Mr. Brandt told the dispatcher he believed the teen was “calling other guys to come get me.” There’s no evidence Mr. Ellingson did so.
In the 911 call, Mr. Brandt described trying to leave in a panic only to be blocked by Mr. Ellingson. At one point he said he knew his running over Mr. Ellingson had been “more than” an accident. But he otherwise insisted the act had been unintentional. “I never meant to hurt him,” he told the dispatcher.
Source: The New York Times
