Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw on Sunday released details of the firearms incident that is being investigated by the FBI as a second assassination attempt against former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
The incident took place at around 1.30 p.m. local time, and a witness played a key role in the arrest of the suspect who is currently under custody.
A secret agent accompanying president Trump located the suspect in the bushes, armed with a AK-47 rifle with a scope, two backpacks and a GoPro.
“These are being processed right now. The secret service agent who was on the course did a fantastic job,” Sheriff Bradshaw said in a Press briefing.
“What they do is they have an agent that jumps one hole head of time to where the president was at,and he was able to spot that rifle barrel sticking out of the fence and immediately engage that individual, at which time that individual took off,” he continued.
Witness provided key information that led to suspect’s arrest
As the suspect of the alleged second Trump assassination attempt fled the scene, the Secret Services notified the Sheriff’s office, whose forces deployed units to immediately seal off the area.
“Fortunately, we were able to locate a witness who came to us and said, hey, I saw the guy running out of the bushes. He jumped into a black Nissan and I took a picture of the vehicle and the tank, which was great,” the Sheriff described.
“So we had that information, our realtime Crime Center put it out to the license plate readers, and we were able to get a hit on that vehicle as it was headed into Martin County. We got a hold of Martin County Sheriff’s Office, alerted them, and they spotted the vehicle and pulled it over and detained the guy.”
Second assassination attempt against Donald Trump in two months
If the FBI confirms that the incident is indeed another assassination attempt against Donald Trump, this will be the second in less than two months.
The September 15 incident comes less than two months after an attempted assassination of former President Trump in Pennsylvania.
Donald Trump was shot and rushed off the stage after multiple gunshots were heard as he spoke at his campaign rally on July 24.
The shooting, which occurred around 6:15 PM local time, left the former president with an injury to his right ear and tragically resulted in the death of one attendee of the rally and critical injuries to two other individuals who were nearby to watch the speech.
The shooter was neutralised and fell dead at the scene.
FBI named 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania as the perpetrator of the Trump assassination attempt, hours after the incident.
