US Secret Service kills man trying to access Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate
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The US President was not in at the time of the incident.
PHOTO: AFP
MIAMI – US Secret Service agents and a sheriff’s deputy fatally shot a man armed with a shotgun who breached the security perimeter of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida in the early hours of the morning on Feb 22.
Mr Trump was in Washington at the time of the incident, which officials said happened around 1.30am local time.
The suspect, a man in his early 20s, was spotted by the north gate of the Mar-a-Lago property, carrying a shotgun and a fuel can, the Secret Service said.
Agents confronted the man and told him to disarm but he raised his gun.
“The only words that we said to him was ‘drop the items’” Palm Beach County sheriff Ric Bradshaw told reporters.
“At which time he put down the gas can, raised the shotgun to a shooting position,” Mr Bradshaw said.
A deputy and two Secret Service agents then shot him. The individual was pronounced dead and no US officers were injured.
The Secret Service said no one under its protection was present in Mar-a-Lago at the time. The US Secret Service is responsible for the safety of the president, vice-president and former presidents, and their families, as well as major election candidates and visiting foreign heads of state.
The was no immediate reaction from the White House.
Mr Trump, who often spends his weekends in Mar-a-Lago, has been the target of several assassination plots or attempts.
Earlier in February, Ryan Routh, 59, who plotted to assassinate Mr Trump at a Florida golf course in September 2024, two months before the US election, was sentenced to life in prison.
Routh’s planned attack on Mr Trump came two months after an assassination attempt on the Republican leader in Pennsylvania, where 20-year-old Matthew Crooks fired several shots during a rally, one of them grazing Mr Trump’s right ear.
That attack, in which a rallygoer was killed, proved to be a turning point in Mr Trump’s return to power. Crooks was immediately shot and killed by security forces and his motive remains unknown.
Political violence has escalated in a deeply polarised country where the political discourse has become increasingly aggressive and inflammatory.
In September 2025, right-wing influencer and staunch Trump ally Charlie Kirk was shot dead during an event at a university in Utah.
Before that, in June 2025, a masked shooter killed Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband at their home. Another elected official and his wife were also targeted and seriously injured.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro – touted in 2025 as a presidential hopeful – had his home set alight in April that year in an alleged assassination attempt.
The name of the suspect in the Feb 22 incident has not been released while officials attempt to contact his relatives. AFP
