A Secret Service agent guards the Mar-a-Lago home of former President Donald Trump on March 21, 2023 in Palm Beach, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
Authorities fatally shot a man who was carrying a shotgun and a gas cannister as he tried to enter President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida early Sunday morning, the Secret Service said.
Trump was at the White House at the time of the incident. The president maintains a residence at Mar-a-Lago, and frequently dines and hosts events at the Palm Beach club.
The man was shot by Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County Sheriff deputy at around 1:30 a.m. ET after entering the secure perimeter around Mar-a-Lago near its north gate and then raising the shotgun at an officer, authorities said.
The man who was shot has been identified as 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin of North Carolina, according to an FBI statement on Sunday.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Rick Bradshaw told reporters at a press conference on Sunday that “a deputy and two Secret Service agents on the detail went to that area to investigate.”
“They confronted a white male [who] was carrying a gas can and a shotgun,” Bradshaw said. “He was ordered to drop those two pieces of equipment that he had with him, at which time he put down the gas can, raised the shotgun to a shooting position.”
“At that point in time, the deputy and the two Secret Service agents fired their weapons and neutralized the threat,” Bradshaw said.
The FBI is investigating the incident.
“Secret Service acted quickly and decisively to neutralize a crazy person, armed with a gun and a gas canister, who intruded President Trump’s home,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X.
She also knocked Democrats over the partial government shutdown, which impacted the Department of Homeland Security, which houses the Secret Service.
“It’s shameful and reckless that Democrats have chosen to shut down their Department,” Leavitt said.
DHS has been shuttered for more than a week. Democrats are demanding changes to how the department conducts immigration enforcement operations before agreeing to fund the agency, after two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis.
Trump narrowly avoided assassination in July 2024 when a gunman shot at him from a roof overlooking a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. A Secret Service sniper killed the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Two months after that attempt, another would-be assassin, Ryan Routh, was arrested less than an hour after a Secret Service agent fired at Routh as he lay in wait with a rifle outside a golf course where Trump was playing.
Routh was convicted of trying to kill Trump. He was recently sentenced to life in prison.