Shooter prowled for hours before Trump's final golf game

A gunman hid in the bushes for nearly 12 hours before Donald Trump played an unscheduled round of golf at his beachfront club in Florida – leaving residents stunned by what authorities say appears to be the second assassination attempt on the former president in as many months.

It was a warm and cloudy Sunday afternoon when Trump and his good friend, real estate developer Steve Witkoff, arrived at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.

The former president was on the fifth fairway at 1:31 p.m. EDT (1731 GMT), an area adjacent to busy roads near Palm Beach International Airport, when a member of his security team spotted a rifle protruding from the foliage near the sixth hole.

Trump, who was evacuated unharmed, said Monday night he heard “probably four or five” gunshots ring out at close range.

A Secret Service agent reacted quickly and opened fire toward the suspect, who was about 300 to 500 yards away and did not have a clear line of sight to Trump, federal investigators said.

“The Secret Service knew immediately that it was bullets and they got me,” Trump said during an event broadcast live on X, formerly Twitter, from his Mar-a-Lago resort.

“We got on the wagons and we made pretty good progress. I had an agent with me, and he did a fantastic job.”

The shooter – who investigators say did not fire any shots – was concealed by the manicured shrubs and tall palm trees that line the perimeter of the 27-hole course.

He had been lurking on the public side of a fence since 1:59 a.m. local time Sunday morning, according to cellphone records cited by federal officials.

The suspect was equipped with two digital cameras, a black plastic bag containing food, a semi-automatic SKS-type rifle – a weapon with a range of nearly 440 meters – and a scope to magnify its objective.

The Republican presidential candidate's last publicly scheduled campaign event was Saturday night, halfway across the country in the state of Utah.

Locals say Trump spends nearly every Sunday at the West Palm Beach golf club when he's not campaigning.

But Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe said Monday that the former president was “not even supposed to go,” so agents had to come up with a last-minute security plan.

The foiled plot left Trump's Palm Beach neighbors with pressing questions.

Did the suspect know the former president would be coming to play golf, or was it just speculation?

How did he manage to go unnoticed for so long, hiding in the bushes with a rifle?

The gunman fled in a black Nissan, abandoning his backpack containing goods and his weapon.

A civilian woman was able to take a photo of his license plate and provide it to investigators, Trump said Monday night.

The gunman held out for about 40 minutes before officers stopped his vehicle on Interstate 95 and ordered him to get out.

Body camera footage shows he appeared calm as officers yelled at him to move to the side before handcuffing him without incident.

On Monday, suspect Ryan Routh, 58, appeared before a packed Palm Beach courtroom wearing a blue jail jumpsuit and smiling as he spoke with his attorney.

He was charged with one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and one count of possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. More charges could follow.

Routh, a Hawaii resident with a criminal history, came on the FBI's radar in 2019 for gun possession. The FBI alerted Honolulu law enforcement.

Although his motives for allegedly planning to target Trump have not been revealed, the suspect had previously said on social media that he voted for the Republican in 2016 before switching sides.

Along the perimeter of Trump's golf course on Monday, bright orange cones, barricades, police cars and officers protected every corner of the club.

The incident shocked West Palm Beach and neighboring towns.

Shelby Stevens, a 52-year-old Trump supporter from West Palm Beach, told the BBC: “No matter how much security you have and everything else, if someone is willing to give their life to take someone else's, it can happen.”

Cosme Blanco has lived within blocks of the course for most of his life, where he said Trump comes up to twice a week when he's not campaigning.

The 61-year-old Trump supporter said the security presence around the golf club is not usually impressive. But that changed Sunday, when Blanco rushed outside five minutes after the shooting to see helicopters circling the neighborhood.

“I was worried. I was going to be 62 years old and I had never seen America change so much,” the Cuban immigrant said.

Blanco said it would not be difficult for a suspect to target Trump on his golf course.

The former president traveled there in a motorcade that reportedly took about 12 minutes to travel from Mar-a-Lago across a bridge overlooking the Lake Worth Lagoon.

“If they see the motorcade coming, I'm sure at that point they know he's going to play golf – it's common sense,” Blanco said.

But Anka Palitz, a Palm Beach resident who said she has known Trump personally for years, said Routh's timing was suspect.

“He doesn't play golf every Sunday,” she said. “I think there's a conspiracy.”

“How was he?” [the gunman] “You didn't see?” she added.

Palitz, who said she used to go skiing with Trump's ex-wife, Ivana, said she believes someone must have alerted the suspect that the former president was going to the course that day.

Patricia Pelham, originally from the United Kingdom and living in Florida for 30 years, wondered where the suspect could have parked his car close enough to make a quick escape.

“How come there is no security outside?” asked the Briton, who added that she was not a Trump supporter.

Pelham said security measures have been stepped up around Mar-a-Lago on the island of Palm Beach since Trump was injured when a 20-year-old gunman tried to assassinate him at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.

On Monday, police cars lined the island's roads almost every half-mile, with the 17-acre complex closed to visitors.

Authorities said the entire golf course would have been surrounded if a sitting U.S. president had been on the green.

After blaming White House rhetoric for the latest alleged attempt to assassinate him, Trump said Monday night that he had a “very pleasant call” with President Joe Biden about stepping up Secret Service protection.

President Biden, a Democrat, on Monday asked Congress to approve more funding for the agency in the coming weeks, saying the Secret Service “needs more help.”

Michael Matranga, a former Secret Service agent who worked for former President Barack Obama, said Trump has enjoyed better security than many other former presidents, who typically receive less protection than White House incumbents.

For example, he said, former presidents are not typically offered counter-sniper teams like Trump was.

The Secret Service has been under intense scrutiny since the first assassination attempt on Trump, with agency chief Kimberly Cheatle resigning less than two weeks after the rally.

Agency officials said the Secret Service was under-resourced.

But even with those extra resources, Matranga said, agents are forced to strike a delicate balance between protecting Trump while allowing him to engage with voters on the campaign trail and “enjoy a round of golf.”

They can't just “keep him in a bulletproof box,” Matranga said.

Trump doesn't seem to want to be placed there either.

In a fundraising email sent Monday afternoon, he told supporters: “My resolve is only stronger after yet another assassination attempt!”

It's the kind of “tough” attitude Stevens expects Trump to maintain as he continues to court voters in the weeks leading up to the November general election.

“I don't think he wants the American people to know that he's afraid to go out,” Stevens said.

“I think he'll always be there, not just here but everywhere. I don't think it's something he's going to avoid.”

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