He was freed after he admitted to mowing down a teenager that he considered a “Republican extremist”
A North Dakota man was released from jail this week on a $50,000 bond, despite facing homicide charges after he told investigators that he intentionally ran down a “Republican extremist” teenager over a political argument. Conservative pundits and lawmakers are furious, claiming rhetoric by President Joe Biden spurred the man on.
Shannon Brandt was released from Stutsman County Jail on Tuesday, after he was arrested on Sunday and charged with vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a fatal crash. According to police reports and court documents published by Fox News, the 41-year-old suspect had been drinking at a “street dance” in McHenry, North Dakota, when he got into a “political argument” with 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson.
Brandt said he believed that Ellingson and his friends were “coming to get him,” so he struck the teen with his SUV. Brandt claimed that the 18-year-old was “part of a Republican extremist group.”
Ellingson died of his injuries in the hospital shortly afterwards, and Brandt was arrested at his home later that evening.
The suspect’s release on such a small bond infuriated conservatives. Former President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Jr., claimed Brandt had been spurred on by “Joe Biden and his insane speech of just 2 weeks ago.”
Earlier this month, in a speech that a majority of Americans considered a “dangerous escalation,” Biden claimed that Trump and his supporters “represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” and called on his supporters to “confront” these ‘extremists’.
As North Dakota’s Republican attorney general allegedly blocked critics on social media, some conservative pundits hounded the party for not officially commenting on the case. “The Left will run down your children in the street and the establishment GOP won’t even say anything when they walk free,” commentator Jack Posobiec tweeted on Thursday.
“A left wing political terrorist is walking free after intentionally killing an 18 year old because he was a Republican,” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted. “Not one J6 defendant is charged with murder yet they are rotting pretrial in jail not allowed to post bail,” she added, referring to the scores of Trump supporters still detained in Washington, DC over the riot on Capitol Hill last January.
