Daytona Woman Vows to Shoot Trump 'With My Glock,' Calls It a Joke. She's Jailed Without Bond

President Trump was headed to Daytona Beach for a Friday night rally. A 21-year-old woman who lives there posted that she would be waiting for him with a gun. She spent the day of the rally in jail instead.

Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood named her Friday morning: Allison Albro of Daytona Beach. On Thursday night she posted a smiling selfie to Instagram with this caption: "Going to the trump rally in my city tmr so I can sh⚠️t him with my glock! wish me luck guys !!" A warning emoji covers part of one word in the copy the sheriff released. Chitwood and his deputies read it as a threat to shoot the president, and so did the federal agents who flagged it.

"We are not going to tolerate threats to assassinate the president," Chitwood wrote. "Allison Albro, 21, Daytona Beach, is learning that the hard way."

From a post to a cell in one night

The post went up Thursday night. Federal agents spotted it and called the sheriff's office. Local stations reported that the tip came from the Secret Service or the FBI, and both agencies were part of the case. The Volusia Crime Center identified Albro, and detectives from the sheriff's Domestic Security Unit went to her home with Secret Service agents.

According to the arrest report, as FOX 35 Orlando quoted it, Albro was "emotionally upset" and "stated she knew why law enforcement was there." She told deputies the post was "obviously a joke," that she does not own a Glock and does not like guns, and that she would never hurt anyone. She also admitted she does not like the president. Her mother had already told her to take the post down and warned her she could be arrested for it, the report says.

Deputies searched the house with her consent and found no firearms, no ammunition and no gun accessories, WFTV reported from the investigators' account. She was booked anyway, and the state asked a judge to keep her locked up before trial. She is being held without bond, WESH reported.

Why "just kidding" is not a defense

Chitwood listed two charges: written threats to kill and unlawful use of a communications device. Both are felonies.

Florida's threat law, section 836.10, makes it a crime to "send, post, or transmit" any writing or electronic record "in any manner in which it may be viewed by another person" that threatens to kill or hurt someone. Nothing in it requires the poster to own a weapon or follow through. The law punishes the threat itself. That is a second-degree felony, worth up to 15 years in prison. Using a phone to carry out a felony adds a third-degree felony under section 934.215, worth up to five more.

The First Amendment does protect jokes, hyperbole and ugly opinions about politicians. It does not protect true threats. In 2023, in Counterman v. Colorado, the Supreme Court said prosecutors must show the speaker at least recklessly ignored an obvious risk that her words would be taken as a threat of violence. That will be the fight in this case. Her own report gives prosecutors something to work with: she knew why deputies were at her door, and her mother had warned her before they got there.

Think of it like joking about a bomb in an airport security line. The officers don't get to guess whether you meant it, so they treat it as real every time. A day before a presidential visit, a public post naming the place, the time, the target and the gun gets the same treatment.

Why nobody laughs anymore

Trump has already been shot once. On July 13, 2024, a gunman fired from a rooftop at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, hitting Trump in the ear and killing firefighter Corey Comperatore. Two months later, on Sept. 15, 2024, a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle poking through the fence line at Trump's West Palm Beach golf course. That gunman, Ryan Routh, was convicted by a federal jury in 2025.

So when a post says a gun is coming to a Trump rally, the people guarding him have learned not to wait and see. Federal agents flagged it within hours, and she was under arrest by early Friday, long before the rally doors opened.

Chitwood had already warned Daytona Beach on Thursday morning to expect "significant road blocks, traffic closure and strict security measures" around the Ocean Center, where Trump was set to speak Friday at 7 p.m. After the arrest, he had a message for anyone else with a sense of humor like Albro's.

"I would strongly advise anyone else thinking of posting a 'joke' along these lines to think twice," Chitwood wrote. "VSO continues to work hand in hand with the Secret Service, FBI and all our law enforcement partners to ensure this presidential visit to Daytona Beach is a safe event for all who attend, and for our whole community."

What happens next

Albro faces state charges, and the sheriff has not announced any federal case. Threatening the president is also a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. 871, punishable by up to five years. She is presumed innocent, and her next step is in Volusia County court, where the judge has kept her jailed without bond.