June 2024 TorchStone Global Monthly Executive Protection Report
TorchStone Global believes that broader situational awareness and intelligence are key to providing quality executive protection—whether the principal is a Fortune 500 CEO, international celebrity, or local city council member. With that in mind, we are launching our monthly executive protection report, cataloging incidents we have captured through our open-source searches that are relevant to the practice of executive protection. We hope the report will serve as a centralized source of threat activity to provide insight into current trends in threats to high-profile individuals.
For more information on customized threat tracking for at-risk individuals, threat assessments, executive protection, or other security services, please contact us.
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Summary
The TorchStone Executive Protection Report tracked 18 domestic and 12 international security incidents impacting high-profile individuals during the month of June 2024. Below are some key incidents of note over the past month.
- Burglars targeted the homes of at least three current and former NBA players in the Los Angeles area in June 2024. All three incidents occurred while the residents were not at home. Home security cameras picked up images of the burglaries, but home security systems did not prevent the burglaries or alert authorities in time to intercept the criminals before they fled. The three burglaries came soon after L.A. Clippers center Ivica Zubac’s home was similarly burglarized in May. It is unclear if the burglaries were linked to the same perpetrators, but professional home burglary groups are very active in the Los Angeles area. The burglaries are yet another reminder to residents in Los Angeles and other major cities to review their home security systems.
- Elections continue to drive attacks, harassment, and threats against government officials around the world. Protesters targeted leading political figures in the United Kingdom over the past month in the lead-up to national elections on July 4. Similarly, in France, activists targeted a politician campaigning for the far-right party, National Rally in the lead-up to their second round of elections on July 7. Election-related violence tapered off in Mexico following elections on June 2, but violence targeting local political leaders is still likely over the coming months. Similarly, the already elevated level of threats against U.S. political figures is only set to increase as the 2024 election approaches and attracts more public attention.
- Climate activists continued to amplify their message through protest actions at high-profile public events. UK activists targeted the wedding of a wealthy British businessman and an area of Stansted airport reserved for private aircraft. In the United States, activists targeted a professional golf event while the leaders were on the final green. Climate activists around the world will continue to target high-profile events and people to promote their message and gain publicity over the coming months.
Business Executive
| Location: Chester, UK | Tactic: Harassment | Venue: Public Area |
June 7, 2024: Police arrested two women protesting on behalf of the environmental campaign Just Stop Oil after they released orange powder from a fire extinguisher-type device during the wedding of the Duke of Westminster, Hugh Grosvenor, and his wife, Olivia Henson. Grosvenor is one of the richest people in the UK. Witnesses said the two women had arrived outside Chester Cathedral early in the morning of June 7 and had waited until 1 pm later that day to carry out their protest. Just Stop Oil is known for targeting high-profile events to gain publicity.
Celebrity
| Location: Green Bay, WI | Tactic: Attack | Venue: Public Area |
June 1, 2024: A concertgoer threw an object at singer Bebe Rexha as she performed in Green Bay, WI. The person was escorted out while Rexha joked about pressing charges, an action she had to take last year in June during another concert when an audience member threw a phone at her face, splitting her eyebrow and requiring stitches. Although the June 1, incident did not result in charges against the assailant, fans said the performance was disrupted twice as other people threw objects at her on stage which resulted in at least 10 people being escorted out of the show.
| Location: Los Angeles, CA | Tactic: Other Crime | Venue: Home |
June 2, 2024: LAPD responded to reports of a home invasion near the residence of actor Jonathan Tucker in the Hancock Park neighborhood. The actor reportedly called the Los Angeles Police Department at around 6:30 p.m. after seeing a suspicious stranger enter a nearby residence. According to reports, Mr. Tucker ran into the house, found a young girl, and brought her outside to his wife before going back in. On his second entry, he found the young girl’s mother and an infant, frightened by the suspect, and led them to safety. Officials stated that the suspect was placed on a mental health hold following his arrest.
| Location: Los Angeles, CA | Tactic: Stalking | Venue: Home |
June 6, 2024: LAPD detained a man who has repeatedly stalked Miley Cyrus since at least 2018 after he appeared at Cyrus’s home attempting to give Cyrus a stuffed bear. The incident took place only a few days after he was released from prison for a similar incident in January at her home. Cyrus’s security identified the man from past incidents and detained him until police could arrive. Cyrus had a restraining order against him, and he was charged with a misdemeanor violation of a court order, LAPD Threat Management is now investigating the case.
| Location: Los Angeles, CA | Tactic: Stalking | Venue: Home |
June 6, 2024: A judge granted actress Emma Roberts a permanent restraining order against a 32-year-old man who allegedly broke into her Los Angeles home in early May while she was away. She claims the man used her landline to dial her mobile phone. Ms. Roberts claimed he addressed her as “Emma” and said she had given him permission to enter her home and stay there, which she denies. Roberts claims the man sent her a “strange” text and she is afraid that he will try to return to her home. The judge in the case granted a restraining order barring him from coming within 100 yards of Ms. Roberts, her work, her son and his school, and their home.
| Location: Los Angeles, CA | Tactic: Other Crime | Venue: Home |
June 7, 2024: A Los Angeles-area home belonging to ex-NBA player Patrick Patterson was burglarized. The break-in happened just before midnight on June 7, when two men wearing masks, gloves, and all-black outfits were captured on Patterson’s security cameras rummaging through his home. The men took two big bags of the former Raptors forward’s belongings and left the residence before LAPD officers arrived on the scene. It’s unclear exactly what was stolen from the residence. It is reported that the men left in a KIA. There were no immediate arrests.
| Location: Los Angeles, CA | Tactic: Other Crime | Venue: Home |
June 15, 2024: Law enforcement is actively investigating a burglary at the residence of NBA player Daniel Theis in Century City. The LAPD responded to a burglary incident and indicated the intruders entered the home while Mr. Theis was not there. According to police, it is unclear what the suspects stole before fleeing the property.
| Location: Los Angeles, CA | Tactic: Other Crime | Venue: Home |
June 20, 2024: Climate protesters entered a UK airfield where they sprayed jets with orange paint. The activists, two women identified by Just Stop Oil, were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and interference with national infrastructure. The activist campaign Just Stop Oil also claimed that Taylor Swift’s jet had just landed at the airfield, the singer has received heavy criticism from environmentalists for her use of private jets.
| Location: Los Angeles, CA | Tactic: Other Crime | Venue: Home |
June 23, 2024: Law enforcement is investigating a burglary at NBA player Talen Horton-Tucker’s L.A.-area residence while he was out of town. The LAPD responded to the reported burglary but made no arrests. Home security cameras recorded the intruder entering the property by jumping over a back fence. The suspect stole approximately $170,000 in jewelry before fleeing the residence.
| Location: Cromwell, CT | Tactic: Harassment | Venue: Other Restricted Area |
June 23, 2024: Protesters stormed the 18th green at the TPC River Highlands as the leaders were preparing to putt on the final hole of regulation at the 2024 Travelers Championship. Six people wearing shirts with an environmental message dumped a powdery orange substance on the green. Cromwell police quickly subdued the protesters and handcuffed them. According to Cromwell police, all six protesters were charged with first-degree criminal mischief, first-degree criminal trespass, and breach of peace. The six protesters hailed from a number of out-of-state locations including Washington, D.C., White Plains, Maryland, and Brooklyn, New York. Cromwell Police said they were all released on bond and given a court date of July 1 in Middletown Superior Court.
| Location: Tampa Bay, FL | Tactic: Attack | Venue: Public Area |
June 23, 2024: The rapper known as Foolio was shot and killed on his 26th birthday in a hotel parking lot in Tampa, FL. The rapper was inside a vehicle when he was shot in what his lawyer described as an “ambush.” Three other victims were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Foolio had made references to multiple attempts on his life in his latest album that was released in April and had shared the location of his birthday festivities on social media just hours before the incident.
| Location: Malmo, Vancouver, British Columbia | Tactic: Attack | Venue: Public Area |
June 30, 2024: After performing at Vancouver’s Ignite Music Festival on Sunday around 10:30 pm, rapper Rick Ross (real name William Leonard Roberts II) left the stage and entered a crowded area, where he became involved in a heated argument with several men. A video captured the verbal confrontation, showing Mr. Roberts engaging in a tense exchange with one of the men that quickly escalated into violence. Reports are not clear as to what triggered the altercation, though it may be related to ongoing disputes with other rappers, including Drake. It is also unknown if anyone was injured or arrested.
Federal Government
| Location: Clacton-on-Sea, England | Tactic: Attack | Venue: Public Area |
June 4, 2024: During a campaign event at a local pub, a woman threw a milkshake at Reform UK party leader, Nigel Farage. Essex police arrested the 25-year-old local woman. While arresting her, officers arrested a second man on suspicion of assaulting an emergency worker. This was not the first time Farage had been targeted by a protester launching a food or drink item at him—in a 2019 incident Farage was doused with another milkshake in Newcastle and had also had an egg thrown at him by a protester in 2014 during a visit to Nottingham.
| Location: Copenhagen, Denmark | Tactic: Attack | Venue: Public Area |
June 8, 2024: A man approached Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a public area of central Copenhagen and punched her in the head. The PM was shaken by the incident but ultimately unharmed.
| Location: Houston, TX | Tactic: Verbal/Written Threat | Venue: Communication Channels |
June 8, 2024: A federal court found a Houston area man guilty of making threats to injure U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. The 24-year-old suspect was found guilty of sending interstate communications with a threat to injure. On June 26, 2022, the suspect threatened to kill Senator Cruz in a voicemail he left with the senator’s office.
| Location: Fort Worth, TX | Tactic: Verbal/Written Threat | Venue: Communication Channels |
June 11, 2024: A Fort Worth man left a one-minute-long voicemail message to an FBI special agent making death threats to him and his family in connection to conspiracy theories about stolen elections. After leaving graphic descriptions of how he would harm the agent and his family, the man followed up with several text messages, including one that read, “Did you [expletive]s really think you were going to disenfranchise 75 million Americans and not die? Lol.” The targeted agent was working on a high-profile investigation regarding a laptop belonging to a person with the initials H.B., which likely refers to President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. The man has been charged with threatening a federal officer involved in a high-profile investigation.
| Location: Barnsley, United Kingdom | Tactic: Attack | Venue: Public Area |
June 11, 2024: In the second incident in four days, Nigel Farage came under fire from objects being thrown at the Reform UK leader who rode on top of a bus while campaigning in South Yorkshire. A video showed two objects thrown and missing Farage with one of the objects appearing to be a takeout cup. South Yorkshire police arrested a 28-year-old man on suspicion of public order offenses. The incident occurred while “Stand Up to Racism” protesters interrupted Farage as he spoke from the bus.
| Location: Nairobi, Kenya | Tactic: Attack | Venue: Other Restricted Area |
June 13, 2024: A judge died from gunshot wounds sustained in court immediately after ruling against a defendant. Court security officers shot and killed the gunman, who was a police officer married to the defendant. He opened fire on the federal magistrate immediately after the judge announced the cancelation of a defendant’s bond for prior violations. Three other court security offers sustained injuries in the attack but are recovering and in stable condition.
| Location: Tustin, CA | Tactic: Other Crime | Venue: Public Area |
June 15, 2024: Police Officers responded to a call of a possible robbery at the Tustin Fields I residential community. On arrival, officers discovered the victim was a member of the U.S. Secret Service and his bag was stolen at gunpoint. During the incident, an officer(agent) involved shooting occurred. The suspect(s) were not located, and it is unknown at this time whether the suspect(s) were injured as a result of the shooting. Officers have located some of the victim’s belongings in the area and the incident is still being investigated.
| Location: Saint Etienne, France | Tactic: Attack | Venue: Public Area |
June 20, 2024: Masked assailants assaulted a far-right candidate on the campaign trail ahead of France’s snap parliamentary election, in the latest incident of violence targeting politicians across Europe. Police said Hervé Breuil, a candidate for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party, was assaulted as he handed out flyers on a Thursday morning with four others in the industrial city of Saint Étienne. In France, the number of attacks against political figures, many of them mayors and local councilors, has risen steadily in recent years. In the first nine months of 2023, there were 2,387 physical and verbal attacks on politicians, compared with 2,265 for the whole of 2022, when incidents rose by a third compared with 2021.
| Location: North Yorkshire, England | Tactic: Stalking | Venue: Home |
June 25, 2024: Four men were arrested on suspicion of trespassing at the North Yorkshire home of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. North Yorkshire police responded quickly to the men arriving, detaining them less than a minute after stepping onto the property.
| Location: Denver, CO | Tactic: Harassment | Venue: Public Area |
June 27, 2024: During a concert at Mile High Stadium, an audience member hurled a cell phone at Morgan Wallen. Footage from the concert shared on X shows the projectile striking Mr. Wallen in the shoulder. Uninjured, he tossed the item back to the crowd and continued his performance. In the past few years, several artists have had a variety of objects thrown at them during their performances, including phones, bracelets, water bottles, and other items.
State Government
| Location: Bristol, VT | Tactic: Verbal/Written Threat | Venue: Communication Channels |
June 19.2024: Police in Bristol, VT, cited a man for allegedly leaving a threatening voicemail message for a member of the Vermont legislature. Two criminal citations were issued after Rep. Mari Cordes received a voicemail message calling her “an enemy of the people of Vermont” and warning her to “watch your back. You really should, because you’re not safe walking down the street, you dumb **** ****. I hope you die.” As a result of the threat, the man was issued two citations one for criminal threatening, and another for disturbing the peace by use of telephone or other electronic communications, both are misdemeanors.
| Location: Chambersburg, PA | Tactic: Verbal/Written Threat | Venue: Communication Channels |
June 21, 2024: A Pennsylvania man is in custody after making threats to kill State Senator Doug Mastriano in a series of social media posts earlier in June. The suspect also threatened Republican Franklin County Commissioner Dean Horst and a sergeant major in the U.S. Army through a string of messages, photos, and videos on social media. Authorities believe the threats were possibly triggered by the suspect receiving an eviction notice on June 10, the day he began making troubling social media posts. In a subsequent search of his home authorities found 17 firearms, illegal mushrooms, marijuana, and other drug paraphernalia. He remains in custody on charges of interstate communications threatening violence and unlawful possession of a firearm by a user of a controlled substance, he faces up to 10 years in prison.
| Location: Detroit, MI | Tactic: Verbal/Written Threat | Venue: Communication Channels |
June 26, 2024: An Ohio woman was sentenced to 23 months to five years in prison for leaving a race-based death threat voicemail for a former Michigan lawmaker in 2021. The woman left a voicemail for then-Michigan State Rep. Cynthia A. Johnson saying, “You will die… You’re going to die and I’m going to be happy about it.” The woman pleaded guilty to charges for an attempted threat of terrorism, ethnic intimidation and malicious use of telecommunication services, she also pleaded guilty in 54A District Court for malicious use of telecommunications services in connection to leaving another threatening voicemail for a different Michigan lawmaker, State Senator Sarah Anthony.
Local Government
| Location: Cotija, Michoacan, Mexico | Tactic: Attack | Venue: Public Area |
June 3, 2024: Cotija mayor Yolanda Sánchez Figueroa was killed when unidentified gunmen in a vehicle opened fire on her as she walked down a public street in the center of the town. A bodyguard for the mayor was also killed in the attack. The attack happened one day after the conclusion of one of the most violent national election cycles in modern Mexico’s history. Mayor Sanchez was the victim of a kidnapping in September 2023 outside a shopping mall in a suburb of Guadalajara. She had served as the mayor of Cotija since 2021.
| Location: Mannheim, Germany | Tactic: Attack | Venue: Public Area |
June 4, 2024: Police arrested a man after he stabbed a local political candidate as he was campaigning. The candidate’s injuries were not life-threatening. The candidate had chased after a man tearing down his campaign posters and confronted him. The man then confronted the candidate with a knife and cut him several times. The candidate was campaigning as a member of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which has attracted fierce opposition from far-left activists. Police referred the attacker for a psychiatric evaluation after determining he had demonstrated signs of mental illness.
| Location: Wethersfield, CT | Tactic: Verbal/Written Threat | Venue: Communication Channels |
June 5, 2024: Members of the Wethersfield Town Council and their staff reported that they had received death threats since voting to reject a request to fly the thin blue line flag on the day of a Connecticut State Trooper’s funeral in May. The Town Council determined that the request to fly the flag had not been made 30 days in advance as required, but also claimed that the thin blue line flag had “become emblematic of white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and alt-right movements in the United States.” Wethersfield council members and staff received hundreds of emails, texts, and phone messages criticizing the decision, claiming that the flag only shows support for law enforcement. Some of those messages also included threats.
| Location: Ottawa, Canada | Tactic: Verbal/Written Threat | Venue: Communication Channels |
June 21, 2024: Ottawa police have detained and charged a local man for making threats against Ottawa City Council member Stéphanie Plante. Ms. Plante indicated that the threatening emails targeted her because she was a French-speaking Canadian and that this had not been an issue of concern in her area in the past.
| Location: Chicago, IL | Tactic: Verbal/Written Threat | Venue: Communication Channels |
June 28, 2024: Lake County Sheriff’s office arrested a Chicago man after he hand-delivered a note threatening to target the Lake County courthouse and named a specific Lake County judge. Lake County is located in the northern suburbs of Chicago. The man delivered the threatening note to a security guard working at a restaurant along Chicago’s riverwalk on June 14. The note claimed that there would be a “mass shooting with military precision” at the Lake County Courthouse. The man had served a six-year sentence after threatening the same courthouse in September 2014.
Community Leader
| Location: Southfield, MI | Tactic: Harassment | Venue: Public Area |
June 3, 2024: Vandals spraypainted anti-Israel slogans on a law firm belonging to a Jewish member of the University of Michigan board of regents, Jordan Acker. The vandals targeted Goodman Acker law firm, defacing the firm’s sign with messages that included, “Free Palestine,” “Divest now,” “F*** You Acker,” and “UM Kills.” They also left red handprints on the doors of the law firm. Southfield’s chief of police said his department was investigating the incident as a hate crime.
| Location: Brooklyn, NY | Tactic: Harassment | Venue: Public Area |
June 12, 2024: Pro-Palestinian protesters vandalized the private residences of Brooklyn Museum director Anne Pasternak and several museum board members over the night of Tuesday to Wednesday. Vandals splashed red paint over the doorway, left red handprints and painted inverted red triangles on the doors. The inverted red triangle is a symbol used by Hamas militants that has been adopted by pro-Palestinian protesters.
| Location: Madison, WI | Tactic: Harassment | Venue: Public Area |
June 14, 2024: A local court granted a restraining order against a high school parent accused of pushing the school district superintendent during an earlier graduation ceremony. During the May 31 graduation ceremony, the defendant rushed to the stage and pushed the superintendent out of the way. The defendant later told police that he did not want the superintendent to shake his daughter’s hand. The restraining order requires the parent to stay away from the superintendent for four years. There was initial suspicion of a racist motive behind the incident. The defendant’s attorney insisted that the act was immature and embarrassing but not motivated by racial factors.