Tracy Marie Fiorenza of Chicago's Plainfield suburb went before a federal magistrate Monday amid charges of threatening the lives of Donald Trump and his 17-year-old son Barron this summer, Courthouse News Service reports. Authorities arrested Fiorenza, 41, around 8:10 a.m. Monday morning. Her first appearance in court was a removal hearing to determine if, and under what circumstances she would be moved to a federal court in southern Florida, where federal prosecutors filed a complaint against her on Aug. 9.
The government says Fiorenza sent two threatening messages to a school in Florida's Palm Beach County in May and June. Barron has been enrolled in the private Oxbridge Academy since 2021. Fiorenza allegedly sent an email stating, “I will shoot Donald Trump Sr. AND Barron Trump straight in the face at any opportunity that I get!” to the school's headmaster in an email on May 21. In an email on June 5, she said, "I am going to slam a bullet in Baron Trump's (sic) head with his father IN SELF DEFENSE!" A Facebook page seemingly affiliated with Fiorenza featured posts as recently as Sunday that called for the arrest of the "Trump family pedophile ring." Incidents of political and ideological violence — and conspiracy theories like those espoused by QAnon — have risen in the U.S. over the last decade amid environmental, social, economic and infrastructural crises that have shaken popular confidence in the U.S. government, the media and other institutions. Eighteen percent of U.S. respondents to a September 2022 Ipsos poll, including 22% of Democrats, 14% of Republicans and 13% of Independents, said they believe that political violence is acceptable.