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,” Miller said, adding that the information he was sharing was preliminary.

Miller also reported that “in the area of the shooting, sources say they recovered a backpack and a semi-automatic rifle … and a GoPro camera,” a device that would suggest “this individual may have wanted to record himself in the first-person.”

>> @JohnMillerCNN: All this info is preliminary. But "in the area of the shooting, sources say they recovered a backpack and a semi-automatic rifle… and a GoPro camera." The camera suggests "that this individual may have wanted to record himself in the first person." pic.twitter.com/ACliktYvHg

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 15, 2024

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. As of the CNN report, local law enforcement had yet to make an official statement.

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. One rallygoer, 50-year-old fireman Corey Comperatore, was killed. Two other attendees were wounded.

Secret Service snipers quickly took out the gunman, identified as a 20-year-old Pennsylvania man named Thomas Matthew Crooks, who unleashed the attack with a rifle from a nearby roof.

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