Police Deny Stabbing at Trump Rally After Video Sparks Claims

Police in Ohio have denied viral claims that a Donald Trump supporter was stabbed outside a presidential rally on Wednesday, saying footage of the incident instead showed an officer's pocketknife caught on a man's shirt during a fight. The Chillicothe Police Department said an officer intervened to break up an altercation between two people when the retention clip securing the officer's pocketknife became caught in one of the individuals' shirts. The knife did not open, the department said.

"There was no stabbing," Micheal Short, Captain of the Chillicothe Police Department, told Newsweek. The account contradicts claims circulating on social media that a Trump supporter was stabbed outside the rally while the president addressed supporters at the Shoemaker Center on the Ohio University Chillicothe campus on Wednesday evening. Conservative activist Tyer Bowyer shared the footage of the incident on X, claiming that a Trump supporter had been stabbed by an anti-Trump individual.

"Apparently some crazy anti-Trump person stabbed a Trump supporter outside his rally in Ohio," Bowyer wrote in the post's caption. "This is more of the insane political violence stoked by the Left. Pray for the person who was stabbed."

The footage circulated online amid claims that a knife had been left protruding from a man's back. The chaotic footage, in which Trump can be heard speaking in the background, showed a young man asking police officers "Is there a knife in my back?", and telling them "I think I've been stabbed".

This is a developing story. More to follow.