A man driving a red Jeep “with Trump signs” pointed a loaded handgun at two senior citizens during the downtown Wilkes-Barre No Kings rally Saturday, according to a court document.
Just before noon, Michael Paul Kolarik, 52, of Scranton, pointed the gun at a 67-year-old Hanover Twp. woman and a 68-year-old Larksville woman, according to Wilkes-Barre police.
“Several more witnesses to the incident approached police and provided similar accounts of the incident,” Patrolman Richard Andress wrote in an arrest affidavit.
“One provided police with a cellphone video of Kolarik driving past the protest. He stops for a brief moment and produces a firearm from his right side, pointing it in the direction of the crowd at his waist.”
Police charged Kolarik with making terroristic threats, recklessly endangering another person, simple assault and disorderly conduct.
The rally, one of hundreds nationwide the same day, aimed at protesting President Donald Trump’s policies.
“Several screaming protesters” alerted Wilkes-Barre police “that the driver of a red colored Jeep Wrangler” had a gun, according to the affidavit.
The Jeep has no doors so anyone could see inside the passenger compartment, police said.
While ordering Kolarik to pull over, a police officer saw him place a handgun in a center console and close the console, according to the affidavit.
Kolarik voluntarily let police search the Jeep and they found two Smith & Wesson M&P pistols, according to an arrest affidavit. Both had bullets in the firing chamber and more bullets in their magazines.
The 67-year-old woman told police she was walking on East Market Street, which leads to Public Square, when she saw Kolarik brandish “a firearm at his waist and had it pointed in her direction,” according to the affidavit.
Standing on Public Square, the other woman saw Kolarik driving the Jeep “with Trump signs” along the square.
“She saw Kolarik holding a firearm with the barrel pointed in her direction while his finger was on the trigger,” Andress wrote in the affidavit. “In her statement, (the Larksville woman) wrote that she began to shake and was afraid for her life.”
A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Nov. 5 at 9:30 a.m. Initially unable to post $50,000 bail, Kolarik has since been released.
