Trump Campaign Offices In San Antonio Broken Into, Arrest Made

SAN ANTONIO, TX -- San Antonio police arrested a man accused of breaking into a building housing campaign offices and a call center as part of the Donald Trump presidential contest, police said Wednesday.

The incident occurred early Wednesday morning in the 1800 block of NE Loop 410, KSAT-TV and other local media outlets reported. The building owner told media outlets the suspect entered the building and made it to the third floor where the call center is housed.

According to police, surveillance cameras show the suspect jiggling door handles on office doors on the first, second and third floors before reaching the call center site. Security personnel alerted police, who arrested the man before he caused any damage.

This is the second breach of a Trump campaign office in as many days after a similar setup in North Carolina was firebombed. With no supporting evidence to back his claims, Trump responded to the North Carolina incident in attributing it to operatives of Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival for presidency of the United States.

"Animals representing Hillary Clinton and Dems in North Carolina just firebombed our office in Orange County because we are winning," Trump tweeted out. Still, law enforcement officials there have yet to identify a culprit.

Trump has yet to offer a theory on the San Antonio incident, but the building's owner told media outlets that the crime is likely a random act not related to politics since other buildings in the vicinity have also been broken into recently.

Police have yet to identify a suspect in the Texas break-in, and representatives from the campaign office provided no comment to local media.

Home of the Alamo, where Col. William B. Travis drew a line in the sand as a loyalty test to his troops, San Antonio has lately emerged as a hotbed for local skirmishes in Trump's battle for Texas. Earlier this month, nearly two dozen local police officers assisting the U.S. Secret Service in escorting Trump during a fundraising visit were disciplined for donning the candidate's trademark "Make America Great Again" ball caps while taking selfies.

San Antonio Police Chief William McManus chastised his officers for their behavior, saying it's against departmental policy for police to display political endorsements while on the job as public servants. The city's mayor, Ivy Taylor, also expressed her disappointment via Twitter over the incident -- which garnered national attention, creating an embarrassment for city officials.

Trump capitalized on the incident, using footage of the excited officers clamoring to his side as campaign fodder. Even after a request from city officials was made for him to remove the footage on his Twitter account, he kept it on his Twitter account, purportedly as a means to show support of law enforcement in general for his self-described "law and order" candidacy.

Just as Capgate was dying down in terms of scandal potency, Trump revived the issue again in a radio interview with a local conservative talk radio host that was aired on Tuesday. During the broadcast (recorded during the candidate's visit to San Antonio), Trump attacked the city's mayor for having voiced her disapproval of the cops' behavior.

“I was so sad to hear about it, you can imagine if they wore a crooked Hillary hat, they would have been just fine,” Trump told nationally syndicated host Joe Paglarulio, known simply as "Joe Pags" to listeners.

Asked if the mayor -- the first African American woman elected as mayor of San Antonio -- was a Democrat ("I assume he's a Democrat?" Trump asked), "Pags" replied: "It's a woman, but yeah, Ivy Taylor. She's a Democrat, yup."

Trump replied: “Democrat? Yeah, she should be ashamed of herself."

He ended the exchange by labeling the police officers' donning his caps as "incredible, brave people."

In response to Trump's latest comments on the incident involving San Antonio police, Taylor reiterated her opposition to the officers' zeal in a prepared statement:

I will just repeat what I said earlier and what our Police Chief has said. We have policy here at the city and the officers violated that policy. It's important for us to have a strong working relationship between the police and the community and we don't want policy violations to threaten that relationship. -Mayor Ivy R. Taylor

>>> Image via Shutterstock