Onlookers astonished as GOP governor tells Trump crowd to stop booing dead cop

The internet was stunned Wednesday after Nevada Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo had to tell a crowd of Trump supporters not to boo a fallen police officer.

Lombardo was speaking in Las Vegas touting Trump accounts when he mentioned police officer Austin Abdelnabi, a Marine veteran who died following a shootout with a suspect on Tuesday.

“So I know the pastor spoke about Officer Abdelnabi,” said Lombardo, who was interrupted by booing.

“No. We’re not booing him. He’s the officer that passed away,” Lombardo said.

The crowd quieted down as Lombardo said he wanted to offer a moment of silence for Abdelnabi.

On social media, critics called out the crowd’s reaction to hearing the officer’s name and their immediate response.

“The booing of what sounds like a foreign (and no doubt in the man’s mind, ‘Islamic’) name really speaks volumes about the mindset of some Trump supporters. Even when Trump is gone, this white Christian nationalist section of US society will still remain,” Dr. Steven Buckley, lecturer in Digital Media Sociology at City St. George’s at the University of London, wrote on Bluesky.

“It’s a Klan Rally. These people only have to hear a name that their lizard brains process as sounding Arabic and hate immediately pours out,” Bluesky user Danielle Blake, a political commentator who self-identifies as a “British social Democrat” and has more than 1,500 followers, wrote.

“Are they booing because they think he’s a Muslim? That’d be really crappy,” Amanda Berry, a progressive political commentator and veteran, wrote on X.

“Oh my….even their racism is racist,” writer and editor Keith Murphy posted on X.