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One man is in custody after shots were fired at former president’s Donald Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida Sunday afternoon. At the time of the shooting, the former president was golfing. The FBI is investigating the incident as an assassination attempt.
The former president’s website sent out an “alert from Trump” shortly after the incident that reads: “There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumors start spiraling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL!”
Law enforcement sources have identified the would-be shooter as Ryan Wesley Routh.
The FBI said in a statement that it “has responded to West Palm Beach Florida and is investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination of former president Trump.” Earlier on Sunday, Trump’s campaign had described the incident as “gunshots in his vicinity” and the Secret Service had said Trump was safe.
“The Secret Service, in conjunction with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, is investigating a protective incident involving former president Donald Trump that occurred shortly before 2 p.m.,” Anthony Guglielmi, the Secret Service’s communications chief, said in a post on X.
The incident on the perimeter of the Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach follows the July 13 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump’s ear was clipped by a bullet from long range.
His opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, posted on X: “I have been briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Trump and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe. Violence has no place in America.” The White House echoed the message, saying, “They are relieved to know that he is safe. They will be kept regularly updated by their team.”
Palm Beach County sheriff Ric Bradshaw said the Secret Service agents fired at a man pointing an AK-style rifle with a scope as the former president was on the course. Bradshaw added that the gunman had a GoPro camera and two backpacks hanging on a fence, and that he was hiding in bushes between 400 to 500 yards from the former president in a nearby hole.
The man was captured after dropping the weapon and fleeing in an SUV.
Trump’s running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance said in an X post, “I’m glad President Trump is safe. I spoke to him before the news was public and he was, amazingly, in good spirits. Still much we don’t know, but I’ll be hugging my kids extra tight tonight and saying a prayer of gratitude.”
Early questions are being posed about how this could possibly happen after the first shooting. Palm Beach officials said: “So when somebody gets into the shrubbery, they’re pretty much outside and at this level that [Donald Trump] is at right now, he’s not the sitting president. If he was, we would have this entire golf course surrounded. But because he’s not, security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible.”
“So I would imagine that the next time he comes to the golf course, there will probably be a little bit more people around the perimeter, but the Secret Service did exactly what they should have done. They provided exactly what the protection should have been, and their agents did a fantastic job.”
“But with a rifle and the scope like that, that’s not a long distance,” officials said.
The use of an AK-47 “could connote a foreign connection,” one source in the Secret Service community told RealClearPolitics’s Susan Crabtree. One of her Secret Service sources added, “We live in dangerous times.”
The Trump campaign, however, has responded by emphasizing “unity” and “peace.”
