Palm Beach Shooter Was Targeting Trump, Exchanged Gunfire With Secret Service: Report

Donald Trump appears to have been the intended target in a shooting at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, according to a report. The former president is safe, his campaign said in a statement.

CNN’s Brian Stelter shared to X that some of his colleagues were reporting that officials “believe the shots fired at Trump International Golf Club were intended for former President Donald Trump, according to sources familiar on the matter.”

“The Secret Service identified the direction” of the shooter and “returned fire at that gunman, who fled,” CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst and former police official John Miller said on the air.

“Witnesses were able to provide a description of an individual and a vehicle. We are told that a vehicle that is close to that description has been stopped” by police and they were holding that individual for identification purposes, Miller said.

Miller, who stressed his information was preliminary, also said his sources shared that a backpack and a semi-automatic rifle “that was described as an AK-47 in the preliminary reporting” were found in the area of the shooting.

A GoPro camera was also discovered, suggesting “this individual may have wanted to record himself in the first-person doing the shooting,” Miller added before explaining how there were “a lot of questions to be answered.”

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said his agency and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office are “investigating a protective incident involving former President Donald Trump that occurred shortly before 2 p.m.”

“The former president is safe,” Guglielmi continued, adding that the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office would “soon” have more details to share.

The Martin County Sheriff’s Office said it stopped a vehicle and a suspect believed to be connected to the shooting was taken into custody. Martin County is located just north of Palm Beach County.

And the FBI later released a statement, saying, “The FBI has responded to West Palm Beach Florida and is investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination of former President Trump.”

Trump previously went through a harrowing attack in mid-July, when a shooter opened fire on him while he was speaking to a crowd during an outdoor campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The former president survived, though he was hit in his right ear by a bullet. He raised his first into the air in a show of strength. One rallygoer, 50-year-old fireman Corey Comperatore, was killed. Two other attendees were wounded.

Secret Service snipers took out the gunman, identified as a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man named Thomas Matthew Crooks, who unleashed the attack with a rifle from the roof of a building about 150 yards away from the stage.

Multiple investigations ensued, with questions swirling about how law enforcement failed to stop the gunman in Butler before the shooting despite warning signs. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned amid blowback.

Related News