Secret Service Kills Armed Man Who Broke Into Trump's Presidential Residence Security Perimeter

JAKARTA - A gunman who broke through the security perimeter of US President Donald Trump's residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, was shot dead by the Secret Service early Sunday.

President Trump himself was in Washington at the time of the incident, which officials said occurred around 1:30 a.m.

The suspect, a man in his early 20s, was seen at the north gate of the Mar-a-Lago property carrying a rifle and a jerrycan of fuel, the Secret Service said, citing Al Arabiya from AFP (23/2).

The agents confronted the man and told him to put down his weapon, but he instead raised his gun.

"The only words we said to him were 'drop the stuff,'" Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw told reporters.

"At that time he put down the jerigen fuel, raised the rifle to the firing position," said Bradshaw.

A deputy and two Secret Service agents then shot him. The man was pronounced dead and no US officers were injured.

The Secret Service said no one under its protection was at Mar-a-Lago at the time.

The name of the suspect in Sunday's incident has not been released while authorities are trying to contact his relatives.

Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed the Democrats for the ongoing partial government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which includes the Secret Service.

"It is truly shameful and reckless that the Democratic Party has chosen to shut down their Department," he wrote on X.

The Democratic Party opposes any new funding for the DHS until major changes are implemented in the way the Trump administration conducts its massive and sometimes violent deportation campaigns.

President Trump, who often spends weekends at Mar-a-Lago, has been the target of several assassination plots or attempts.

Earlier this month, Ryan Routh, 59, who plotted to assassinate the president on a Florida golf course in September 2024, two months before the last US election, was sentenced to life in prison.

Routh's planned attack on Trump came two months after an assassination attempt on the Republican leader in Pennsylvania, where Matthew Crooks (20) fired several shots during a rally, one of which hit Trump in the right ear.

The attack, in which a campaign staffer was killed, proved to be a turning point in Trump's return to power. The event resulted in a famous photo of Trump covered in blood raising his fist toward the crowd and urging his followers to "fight, fight."

Crooks was immediately shot and killed by security forces and his motive remains unknown.

It is known that political violence has increased in the Uncle Sam's country, where political discourse has become increasingly aggressive and provocative.

In September last year, right-wing influential figure and Trump's loyal ally, Charlie Kirk, was shot dead during an event at a university in Utah.

Previously, in June, a masked gunman killed Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband at their home. Other elected officials and their wives were also targeted and seriously wounded.

And Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro - who was touted as a presidential candidate last year - had his home firebombed in April in an alleged assassination attempt.