Armed man shot and killed at Mar-a-Lago was never interested in politics or guns, cousin says

The 21-year-old North Carolina man who drove done a gross astatine President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago edifice pinch a shotgun earlier he was changeable and killed worked arsenic a play people groundskeeper and liked to sketch.

Austin Tucker Martin rarely, if ever, talked astir politics, seemed acrophobic of guns, and came from a family of Trump supporters, according to Braeden Fields, a relative who said nan 2 grew up together.

“I wouldn’t judge he would do thing for illustration this. It’s mind-blowing,” Fields said. “He wouldn’t moreover wounded an ant. He doesn’t moreover cognize really to usage a gun.”

Martin drove into nan unafraid perimeter astatine Mar-a-Lago early Sunday and raised a shotgun astatine 2 Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County sheriff’s lawman who past opened occurrence "to neutralize nan threat,” said Sheriff Ric Bradshaw.

Trump, who often spends weekends astatine nan Palm Beach, Florida, resort, was astatine nan White House astatine nan time.

Investigators person not identified a motive. Trump faced 2 assassination attempts during nan 2024 campaign, including 1 conscionable a fewer miles (kilometers) from Mar-a-Lago erstwhile a man was spotted aiming a firearm done shrubbery while Trump was golfing.

Following Sunday's incident, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said investigators judge Martin bought his shotgun while driving to Florida. Authorities said his family had precocious reported him missing.

Martin was from cardinal North Carolina, wherever guns and hunting are a portion of life, his relative said. But whenever they'd spell hunting aliases target shooting, Martin would ne'er prime up a gun, Fields told The Associated Press connected Sunday.

He lived pinch his mother successful a humble modular location down a rutted sandy roadworthy adjacent nan municipality of Cameron. No 1 answered nan doorway Monday, and nan ample constabulary beingness from nan time earlier was gone.

Martin’s sister was killed successful a car mishap a fewer years agone and he has an older relative who’s successful nan military, Fields said.

For nan past 3 years, Martin worked arsenic a groundskeeper astatine Pine Needles Lodge & Golf Club.

“It’s tragic. I consciousness for his family,” said Kelly Miller, president of nan people successful adjacent Southern Pines. “It’s conscionable unfortunate what transpired. It was wholly unexpected.”

Martin past twelvemonth started a business to waste pen drawings he made, according to authorities records. A website matching nan institution sanction features illustrations of play courses, buildings and ancient Roman architecture.

Politics didn’t look to beryllium among his interests, his relative said

“We are large Trump supporters, each of us. Everybody,” Fields said, but his relative was “real quiet, ne'er really talked astir anything.”

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Associated Press reporters Michelle L. Price successful Washington, Ali Swenson successful New York, Jeffrey Collins successful Columbia, South Carolina, and John Seewer successful Toledo, Ohio, contributed.