Armed Trump supporter arrested at NC voting site faces new charges, police say
Justin Dunn, who was arrested at a Charlotte voting precinct on Election Day, faces additional charges after he returned to the polling site Tuesday night, the Observer has learned.
Dunn, police have said, wore a legally-carried, holstered gun when he voted Tuesday morning in University City. But Dunn — who says he supports President Trump — was asked to leave the polling place after casting his ballot, amid complaints from others who called police and witnesses who said they felt intimidated.
Dunn, a former Charlotte City Council candidate who also ran for a state House seat in 2016, flustered voters and cut short a Democratic press event by circling outside the precinct at the Oasis Shrine Temple voting site, the Charlotte Observer previously reported.
When Dunn returned around 12:40 p.m., he was charged with second-degree trespass, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police. In North Carolina, the misdemeanor charge is punishable with up to 20 days in jail and a $200 fine.
Rob Tufano, a spokesman for CMPD, told the Observer on Wednesday that Dunn now faces another second-degree trespassing charge after he turned up at the voting site for a third time Tuesday night. Tufano also said the department is conferring with the courts on whether federal voter-intimidation charges are warranted in the case.
Mark Henriques, the precinct judge for the polling place, told the Observer that Dunn was spotted by voting officials doing a TV interview outside the voting site around 6 p.m. Henriques said Dunn again appeared to be wearing a gun. Police were called, he said, but Dunn left before officers arrived. In a statement Wednesday afternoon, CMPD officials wrote that officers are looking for Dunn and have warrants for his arrest.
North Carolina is one of five battleground states that allows guns at polling places unless the voting is taking place at a building that bans firearms, such as a church or a school.
State law gives polling officials wide berth “to enforce peace and good order” during voting, including stopping “improper practices and attempts to obstruct, intimidate, or interfere with any person in registering or voting.”
Along those lines, polling managers can ask voters not to wear guns at voting sites that otherwise do not prohibit firearms if other voters feel intimidated, the Raleigh News & Observer has reported.
After voting Tuesday morning, Dunn continued to “loiter” in the area, police said in a statement Tuesday. When officers arrived around 10:40 a.m., a precinct official asked Dunn to leave and banned him from the site, according to CMPD. In its statement, the police department said Dunn was lawfully carrying the gun.
Dunn left but later returned, taking a seat in a folding chair not far from the entrance to the polling site with his gun on his hip and his dog.
“He said he wanted to get some sun, which I found kind of humorous,” said Henriques, a Charlotte attorney. “I’ve been working the polls for 15 years, and I have never had someone show up with a gun. Honestly, I didn’t know what to do.”
The polling official said he never had the sense that Dunn intended to pull his weapon, describing his demeanor as “calm” and “matter of fact,” even when Dunn refused to wear the mask that poll workers offered him.
“I was concerned that the situation might escalate ... But he wasn’t acting crazy,” Henriques said. “My sense was that he was looking for media attention. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was happy to get arrested as a sort of victim rally cry, hoping to make himself into a martyr. I don’t see any suppression because we let him vote.”
Dunn told Observer reporter Theoden Janes that he had been verbally accosted Tuesday morning by people in Black Lives Matter T-shirts. He said he left the voting site when ordered to but decided to come back because he had been harassed by onlookers and “threatened with police force.”
While talking with Janes, Dunn refused to give his last name, saying, “I don’t know who’s going to be watching these videos. And ... I fear for my life, ‘cause there are lists out there of people like me who support Trump.”
As Dunn talked with Janes, five police officers approached him and took him away in handcuffs.
This story was originally published November 4, 2020 at 1:21 PM.
