PALM BEACH, Florida (LifeSiteNews) — A 21-year-old North Carolina man was shot and killed over the weekend when he brandished a shotgun at law enforcement after breaking through the security perimeter of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
USA Today reported that at 1:38 a.m. on February 22, a man later identified as Austin Tucker Martin breached the north gate, where he was met by two U.S. Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputy, who ordered him to drop the shotgun and gas can he had been carrying. He dropped the can but “raised the shotgun to a shooting position,” according to Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, at which point the authorities opened fire. Neither the president nor first lady were present at the time.
His parents reported him missing just minutes later to the Moore County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina, which said it had no prior history of encounters with Martin. Golfweek added that Martin had been a landscape artist who worked at Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club in Southern Pines, North Carolina.
Authorities have not officially declared a motive, but TMZ reported that text messages indicate Martin was obsessed with the Epstein files and powerful figures “getting away with it” thanks to a government cover-up, the federal government’s handling of which apparently soured his past support of Trump as a “strong leader” as recently as last year.
TMZ described him as “outspoken about his Christian faith and political views” and “well-meaning but increasingly frustrated, particularly about the economy.”
“I don’t know if you read up on the Epstein Files, but evil is real and unmistakable,” Martin allegedly texted a co-worker on February 15. “The best people like you and I can do is use what little influence we have. Tell other people about what you hear about the Epstein files and what the government is doing about it. Raise awareness.”
Braeden Fields, a 19-year-old cousin of Martin’s, described him as quiet, charitable, and not vocally political. “He wouldn’t even hurt an ant. He doesn’t even know how to use a gun,” Fields told the Associated Press, adding that the rest of their family were “big Trump supporters.”
Martin marks the third failed (apparent) assassination attempt targeting Trump, and the second to pay with his life. In July 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks got off a shot at the president at a Pennsylvania campaign rally, grazing his ear before being killed on the scene by Secret Service. Crooks’ motives appeared to be apolitical, with mental illness driving him to seek out a famous target of opportunity, but last fall that was called into question with the discovery of social media accounts indicating he had been exploring transgenderism online.
Two months after the Crooks shooting, Ryan Routh was arrested after pushing a rifle through a fence at Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course and was found to have a history of mental instability and run-ins with the law, culminating with anger over Trump’s handling of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Routh was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month.
Trump had never been in danger in the Martin case, but Routh and Crooks getting as close as they did has raised questions about the performance of the Secret Service, which has been criticized for security breaches dating as far back as the Bush and Obama administrations. The last U.S. president to actually be shot was Ronald Reagan, by the mentally disturbed John Hinkley in 1981.