Sandpoint man arrested for threatening to kill Donald Trump over loss of tribal land

SPOKANE — Federal authorities arrested a Sandpoint man accused of threatening to kill former President Donald Trump because he blames Trump for the loss of his tribal land, federal court documents say.

A grand jury charged Warren Jones Crazybull on Aug. 20 with threats against a former president, a maximum term of five years in prison. Crazybull, who goes by a number of aliases, told police he is a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, and blames Trump and John F. Kennedy for broken treaties that resulted in the loss of the tribe’s land, records say. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe filed a lawsuit against Trump in 2019 claiming his go-ahead of the Keystone XL pipeline, which spilled thousands of gallons of oil in 2022, violated their treaty and the U.S. Constitution because it crossed through native land with no consultation or analysis from the tribe.

According to the documents, Crazybull called security at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home, in July and told security to “Find Trump” because he was coming to Trump’s Bedminster golf club and “going to down him personally and kill him.” Eight phone calls followed that included similar threats, court records say. The alleged statements were made just 18 days after Trump’s first assassination attempt while at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump was shot in the ear, a man in the crowd died and the shooter was killed by law enforcement.

The U.S. Secret Service in West Palm Beach notified their protective intelligence division about the phone calls, leading law enforcement to scour the internet for Crazybull. They came across his Facebook page under the alias “Tracy Jones” and found there were several self-produced videos of him threatening Trump, the records say. The page indicates he lives in Sandpoint.

Crazybull made a number of “concerning” statements on his page, including that he would “take (Trump) down single combat,” documents say. He also called on people to arrest and kill John F. Kennedy Jr., who died in a plane crash in 1999. The rest of the posts appear sporadic, with a number of words and hashtags jumbled together — “singularity Flingularity AND MY DNA…,” he wrote. “7Q My new home. Rushmore hotel TURTLE ISLAND REPUBLIC MY PROPHECY ROCKS.”

“Turtle Island” is a term for North America used by some Indigenous rights activists.

Investigators traced the phone number from the Mar-a-Lago call and found the phone was in Idaho at the time the Facebook posts were made. When they arrested him, he was in Montana, records say. Crazybull told police he “posted the video to get law enforcement’s attention,” and that he did not own a firearm, did not have any special training and has been admitted for psychiatric care in the past.

“Crazybull appeared as if his thought processes were racing and confused,” the agent wrote. He “also seemed paranoid.”

Following his arrest, Crazybull has an attorney and will be invoking his right to remain silent for the rest of the process, according to court documents.