Armed Man Is Fatally Shot at Mar-a-Lago, Secret Service Says

The local sheriff identified the man as a 21-year-old resident of Cameron, N.C. The president was not at his resort in Florida and has not commented on the shooting.

An armed man was shot and killed by law enforcement officers, including Secret Service agents, after he entered the secure perimeter of Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Fla., early Sunday morning, local and federal authorities announced.

Sheriff Ric L. Bradshaw of Palm Beach County said that the man was Austin Tucker Martin, 21, of Cameron, N.C. He said officials confirmed Mr. Martin’s identity through his driver’s license. Mr. Martin was confronted inside the north gate of the Mar-a-Lago complex and was carrying what appeared to be a shotgun and a fuel canister, the Secret Service said in a statement.

Mr. Trump hosted state governors at the White House on Saturday night and was not at Mar-a-Lago at the time of the shooting.

The president has not yet commented on the shooting and has no public appearances scheduled for Sunday. He posted a few messages on social media on Sunday, congratulating the U.S. men’s hockey team for winning the gold medal at the Olympics.

Sheriff Bradshaw said during a news conference on Sunday that the man was told by law enforcement to “drop the items.” The man put down the canister but raised the shotgun to a “shooting position,” prompting the dispatched officers to open fire and kill him, Sheriff Bradshaw said.

He showed a photo of a shotgun and a canister to reporters. Agents at the scene were wearing body cameras, he said.

At least two Secret Service agents and a Palm Beach County officer were involved in the shooting, which was around 1:30 a.m., Sheriff Bradshaw said. Investigators with the F.B.I., the Secret Service and the sheriff’s office were investigating, the Secret Service said.

At the news conference, Brett Skiles, the F.B.I. special agent in charge of the Miami office, asked people living near the scene of the shooting to check their security cameras for any suspicious activity overnight and to report any relevant footage.

The White House did not provide comment, referring questions to the Secret Service and the F.B.I.

Sean Curran, the director of the Secret Service, was traveling to Florida for briefings on the shooting and to meet with personnel involved in the response, the agency said Sunday. Kimberly A. Cheatle, the previous director of the agency, received heavy criticism for not traveling to Butler, Pa., after an assassination attempt on Mr. Trump at a campaign rally there in 2024. She resigned soon after.

A woman identifying herself as Mr. Tucker’s mother, Melissa Martin, had posted on Facebook on Sunday morning that her son was missing and that he had last been heard from on Saturday at 7:51 p.m. Ms. Martin did not respond to requests for comment.

In a Facebook post that has since been deleted, a woman who said she was Mr. Martin’s aunt, Chrissie Fields, said Mr. Martin had left home at 1 p.m. on Saturday.

“This is not like him at all,” she wrote, adding that local police were involved and had reached out to the F.B.I. Ms. Fields did not immediately respond to calls or text messages.

The Moore County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina said in a release on Sunday that it had opened a missing person case early on Sunday and had since turned over its information to federal investigators.

Mr. Martin graduated in 2023 from Union Pines High School in Cameron, N.C., with his brother, according to social media posts from family members.

Mr. Martin’s sister, Caitlin Renea Martin, died in 2023 at 21 years old after a car crash, according to an online obituary and local news reports.

In June 2025, Mr. Martin registered a business called Fresh Sky Illustrations. According to its website, the company sought to bring “to life the hopeful feeling of being on a golf course,” focusing on artwork for gift shops and commissions.

As of Sunday morning, Palm Beach’s busy winter season largely continued despite a heightened police presence. Joggers and dog walkers peppered the streets, and hotelgoers at the trademark pink Colony Hotel were bustling in and out, holding iced drinks. But access to South Ocean Boulevard, a major vein leading to Mar-a-Lago, was partially blocked to cars as of 10:30 a.m.

The episode on Sunday was not the first involving an armed suspect at one of Mr. Trump’s properties in Florida. In September 2024, Secret Service agents opened fire on Ryan W. Routh, who was standing with a rifle near a chain-link fence on the perimeter of one of Mr. Trump’s golf courses while the president was playing a round. Mr. Routh was convicted of trying to assassinate Mr. Trump and was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month.

That assassination attempt followed an attack on Mr. Trump a few weeks earlier. In July 2024, a lone gunman climbed onto a roof hundreds of feet from the podium where Mr. Trump was giving a campaign speech in Butler, Pa., and shot eight bullets in his direction, killing a rally participant and injuring two others. One of the bullets — or its fragments — struck Mr. Trump on his right ear. The gunman, Thomas M. Crooks, was shot and killed at the scene.

The Secret Service faced intense scrutiny and rebuke after investigations showed that the agency had received reports about Mr. Crooks as suspicious about an hour before the shooting. The agency was also criticized for excluding the roof of a warehouse where Mr. Crooks shot at Mr. Trump from its security zone.

Ali Watkins contributed reporting from London, Eileen Sullivan from Washington and Kaja Andric from Palm Beach, Fla. Georgia Gee contributed research.

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