Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County, Florida, deputy shot and killed a young man who breached the secure perimeter of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in what appears to be a third assassination attempt on his life. Trump was not in Florida.
Dead at the scene early this morning, The Associated Press reported, was Austin Tucker Martin, 21, of Cameron, Moore County, North Carolina. He carried a shotgun and a canister of gasoline.
The FBI is investigating.
The apparent third try to kill Trump follows the second unsuccessful attempt, which occurred at Trump’s National Golf in Palm Beach in September 2024. Before that, Trump was nearly murdered during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024.
Failed Attempt
At a news conference today, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw offered a terse description of the shooting.
At about 1:30 a.m., Martin “made his way into the inner perimeter of Mar-a-Lago,” Bradshaw said:
A deputy and two Secret Service agents on the detail went to that area to investigate. They confronted a white male that was carrying a gas can and a shotgun. He was ordered to drop those two pieces of equipment … at which time he put down the gas can [and] raised the shotgun to a shooting position. … The deputy and the two Secret Service agents fired their weapons and neutralized the threat. He is deceased at the scene.
An FBi agent at the presser urged anyone on nearby property who has camera footage to contact the bureau, and a Secret Service agent reiterated Bradshaw’s account.
Bradshaw said Martin wasn’t known to law enforcement as of the press conference.
“Martin was reported missing by family members in North Carolina,” WRAL in Raleigh reported, citing Moore County officials. They told the station that “the FBI was at Martin’s home in Carthage on Sunday afternoon.”
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Martin “drove through the north gate of Mar-a-Lago after 1 a.m. as another vehicle was exiting and was confronted by Secret Service agents,” WRAL reported:
Investigators believe the suspect left North Carolina and headed south, picking up a shotgun along the way, Guglielmi said.
The FBI, chief Kash Patel said, “is dedicating all necessary resources” to the probe.
Family Supports Trump
“On Sunday afternoon, vehicles blocked the entrance to a property listed in public records as an address for Martin at the end of a private road in Cameron, North Carolina,” AP reported. The news agency spoke to Braeden Fields, Martin’s 19-year-old cousin. Expressing “disbelief,” Fields said Martin was from a family of Trump backers. And Martin was afraid of guns.
“He’s a good kid,” said Fields, who grew up with Martin.
“I wouldn’t believe he would do something like this. It’s mind-blowing,” he told AP:
He said Martin worked at a local golf course and would send money from each paycheck to charity.
“He wouldn’t even hurt an ant. He doesn’t even know how to use a gun,” Fields said.
He said his cousin didn’t discuss politics.
“We are big Trump supporters, all of us. Everybody,” Fields said, but his cousin was “real quiet, never really talked about anything.”
Previous Attempts
In September, a federal jury convicted Ryan Wesley Routh of attempting to assassinate Trump on September 15, 2024, at the Trump International Golf Club in Palm Beach. Ryan waited for 12 hours to ambush the president, but a Secret Service agent spotted the would-be assassin and fired on him. Routh fled but was easily caught.
On February 4 this year, Routh landed in prison for life plus seven years.
That second attempt on Trump’s life after his near-assassination in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 — two months before Routh tried to murder the president — was yet another strike against the Secret Service.
Then-Acting Director Ronald Rowe told reporters that the agency did not sweep the perimeter of the golf course because Trump wasn’t scheduled to play.
That raises the question of how Routh knew Trump would be at the course that day.
More Embarrassment for Secret Service
But the security lapse at Mar-a-Lago wasn’t as embarrassing as the near-assassination of Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. Thomas Matthew Crooks nearly killed Trump with a rifle shot that nicked the then-candidate’s right ear. That crime forced the resignation of agency director Kimberly Cheatle, a “diversity, equity, and inclusion” hire thanks to being a gal pal of former first lady Jill Biden.
Cheatle laughably claimed that agents were not stationed on the rooftop from which Crooks shot Trump because it was too steep and therefore dangerous. As well, the agency had denied Trump more protection despite multiple requests.
Cheatle’s top priority in her job was making women 30 percent of new agents by 2030, the so-called 30×30 program — a dangerous idea given the poor performance of women agents when Crooks nearly murdered Trump.
Another embarrassment for the agency was an agent’s nursing her infant at a Trump campaign event. And months before the first assassination attempt, another agent went berserk and attacked fellow agents at Joint Base Andrews.
Last month, the agency put a far-left agent, Tomas Escotto, on administrative leave after he revealed secrets about Vice President J.D. Vance’s protective detail, its schedule, and how the vice president travels.
Escotto did not become a citizen until 2018.
