A 21-year old man armed with a shotgun was shot dead in the early hours of Sunday after breaking into President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
The suspect, identified as Austin Tucker Martin, an illustrator from North Carolina, drove through the compound gates at about 1.30am, entering as another car was exiting.
Once inside the compound, he put a fuel can on the ground and appeared to aim his shotgun at it, according to law enforcement.
He was killed after refusing to drop the gun when ordered to do so by two Secret Service agents and a deputy from Palm Beach sheriff’s office.
Florida police statement on man shot dead at Mar-a-Lago
Trump was in Washington at the time of the attack, having hosted the annual National Governors Association dinner at the White House on Saturday night. He often spends the weekend at Mar-a-Lago during the winter months.
Republicans immediately blamed Democrats for the “venom” with which they have criticised Trump, and linked the incident to previous assassination attempts.
President Trump and his wife Melania at the White House on Saturday night
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
During the 2024 election campaign, Trump survived a shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania and escaped another at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, a few months later.
“This existential threat that’s venom from the left really has to stop,” Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, told Fox News. “They’ve normalised this violence.”
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, tied the attack to the partial government shutdown, which has frozen funding for the Department for Homeland Security. “Federal law enforcement are working 24/7 to keep our country safe and protect all Americans,” she wrote on X. “It’s shameful and reckless that Democrats have chosen to shut down their department.”
Martin lived a more than ten-hour drive from West Palm Beach, in a part of North Carolina renowned for its golf courses.
He was reported missing by his family on Sunday morning. In a post on Facebook seeking information, his aunt said no one had received word from him since 7.51pm the previous night and his disappearance was “not like him at all”.
Mar-a-Lago
STEVE HELBER/AP
His personal website advertised pen drawings of golf courses in the area where his family lived, including Pine Needles and Mid Pines. His sister died in a car accident at the age of 21 in 2023.
Martin was a similar age to Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old man who tried to assassinate Trump in Butler before he was killed by Secret Service agents.
Anthony Guglielmi, the Secret Service’s chief of communication, said on Sunday morning: “On February 22, around 1.30am, a male in his early 20s was shot by US Secret Service agents and deputy from the Palm Beach county sheriff’s office (PBSO) following an unauthorised entry in the secure perimeter at Mar-a-Lago.
Police held up a picture of the shotgun at the press conference
“The individual, whose identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin, was pronounced deceased. The individual was observed by the north gate of the Mar-a-Lago property carrying what appeared to be a shotgun and a fuel can.
“US Secret Service agents and a PBSO deputy confronted the individual and shots were fired by law enforcement during the encounter. No US Secret Service or PBSO personnel were injured. There were no Secret Service protectees at the location at the time of the incident.”
The attempted break-in at Mar-a-Lago is the latest incident of political violence in the US.
Charlie Kirk, the right-wing polemicist, was killed while debating students in Utah last year. A few months before that a senior Democrat, Melissa Hortman, was assassinated in her home and another state Democrat, John Hoffman, and his wife Yvette were shot and seriously injured. Last year Josh Shapiro, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, survived an arson attack on the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg.