Full press conference: Donald Trump OK after assassination attempt at Mar-a-Lago golf course

So here we go. All right, 130 this afternoon, call came out shots fired. That was called in by the secret service because we're in constant contact with them all the time. We were notified of that. And we had you here that immediately sealed off the area. Fortunately, we were able to locate a witness that came to us and said, hey, I saw the guy running out of the bushes, he jumped into a black Nissan and I took a picture of the vehicle and the tank, which was great. So we had that information, our real time crime center put it out to the license plate readers and we were able to get a hit on that vehicle on I 95 as it was headed into Martin County. We got a hold of Martin County Sheriff's office, alerted them and they spotted the vehicle and pulled it over and detained the guidance. After that, we took the victim. I'm sorry, the witness that witnessed the incident took flew him up there and he identified as the person that he saw running out of the bushes and jumped into the car. Now in the bushes where this guy was, is an AK-47 style rifle with a scope two backpacks which were hung on the fence that had a ceramic tile in them and a GoPro which he was gonna take pictures of. So those are being processed right now. The secret service agent that was on the course, did a fantastic job. What they do is they have an agent that jumps one hole ahead of time to where the president was at and he was able to spot this rifle barrel sticking out of the fence and immediately engage that individual at which time the individual took off. So that's what we know about the investigation. We have somebody in custody right now that is a potential suspect. We got a little bit more work to do on it. But as we usually do, as soon as we decide that we're gonna book him into the county jail and the charges that he's gonna be booked into, we'll get those to you and we'll get a picture of them and we'll get you his background. So now I'm gonna turn it over to the representative of the secret service and he's gonna make a brief statement. Hi, good afternoon, everyone. I first wanna thank, uh, all of our law enforcement partners to include the, uh, Palm Bay Sheriff's office and the Martin County Sheriff's office for their involvement today. Uh, former President Donald Trump is safe and unharmed, uh, following a protective incident shortly before 2 p.m. on Sunday at Trump International Golf Club at West Palm Beach. Uh, the US secret service personnel opened fire on a gunman located near the property line and this matter is under investigation. I'll turn it over to, uh, my partners over at the FBI. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Jeffrey Veltre. I'm the special agent in charge of the fbi's Miami field office. The FBI has assumed the role as the weed federal law enforcement agency in the investigation of the incident that occurred earlier today at Trump International golf course here in West Palm Beach, Florida. We've deployed a number of resources including investigative teams, crisis response, team members, bomb technicians and evidence response, team members as well. What we need right now is for the public to avoid the area around the golf course. We will continue to support this investigation with the full resources of the FBI alongside our partners with the United States Secret Service and the Palm Beach Sheriff's office, as well as Martin County sheriff's office and state and local law enforcement. I would ask that if anyone has any information that may assist with this investigation to contact our tip line at 1 800 call FBI or at tips. That's T IP s.fbi.gov. Thank you, David. I am Dave Ehrenberg, State Attorney for Palm Beach County. I want to thank Sheriff Bradshaw and our partners at the local state and federal levels. I'm here because our prosecutors are currently working up warrants and a motion for pretrial detention for the suspect in that way he will be kept in custody. But our of these warrants and charges at the state level does not preclude federal charges that could be coming. But in the meantime, it looks like the, the warrants and the pretrial detention motion will happen first and again, I want to thank the Cooper operation we've had with our federal partners and at the local level and thank you all for being here today. Ok. We're gonna make these pictures available to you. It'll show you a picture of the backpack and the rifle and there's also a GoPro on the fence there where he was, uh, intent on filming what was going on. Even though we're gonna have to secure a couple of areas around the, the golf course here. The public doesn't need to panic. We know that we got a post office, a library and a school down the street. So we'll make it convenient for you to get to all the places you need to go, get your kids to school, get them over here to the post office or wherever else you need to go. It's safe. There's no more danger here and we'll make it very convenient for you. So having said that we're gonna take a very limited amount of questions and you can direct them to who you want to answer the question. Did this make any statements as he was being the no statement right now as far as his involvement in the incident and uh the further investigation to be completed. Yeah, I'm not sure. Maybe the secret service gentleman answered, I, I misunderstood, I understand. So there was a rifle. So one of your agents saw on the golf course, saw a r pointing to a fence. Was it a chain? Ok. So he saw that. That is correct. Yes, it was one or two holes behind that because the bubble moves a, uh, through the, uh golf course. So our agents will get their first cleared. He noticed that the rifle was pointed out. Our agents engaged. Uh, we are not sure right now if the individual was able to take a shot at our agents, uh, but for sure, our agents were able to, uh, to engage with the, uh, with the II, I don't know that. Do, do Pearson. Now, how far away was the president? How far away was Donald Trump when this gentleman was caught and stopped? Ok, probably between three and 500 yards. But with a rifle and a scope like that, that's not a long distance to the secret service. Um, how far was your agent from would be a said that I, I, I'm not, I'm not sure right now, that's, we're still looking at three quarters of the four rounds of ammunition fired. All that is correct. 4 to 6. We're not sure yet. Was there a long distance? Yes. Yes, thank you. Yes, ma'am. I was wondering what, how this was able to happen and reference. Is there any other security? I didn't hear all this, say that one more time and talk up a little bit. So how is this going to happen? And for future, is there any other security? Of course. Well, you gotta understand the golf course is surrounded by shrubbery. So, so when somebody gets into the shrubbery, they're pretty much out of sight. All right. And at this level that he is at right now, he's not the city president. If he was, we would have had to fire a golf course around it. But because he's not, the security is limited to the areas that the secret service deems possible. So, I would imagine that the next time he comes at a golf course there'll probably be a little bit more people around the perimeter, but the secret service did exactly what they should have done. They provided exactly what the protection should have been and their agent did a fantastic job, which was the, we're going the layout of the golf course. You got three holes, 56 and seven. All right. One of them runs parallel to Summit Boulevard. One of them runs parallel to Congress and he was in an area in the, in the shrubbery where he could see both holes. So the president was another hole back, which means he's about between four and 500 yards away. Oh, he's on the golf course. Yeah, but he's back aways for the secret service. Have you guys changed at all the way that you guys are protecting or rest of Donald Trump? There's not a second potential second attempt on that. Can you just elaborate on how things have changed and what you make of all this? Yes. The, the threat level is high. Uh, we have increased the uh the amount of assets that we've supported. So we are, um, we live in danger time, so. Yes. Ok. The uh, no, we're done with questions right now. There's really nothing more for us to add. I just want to tell you the secret service and the FBI and the State Attorney's office have been fantastic to work with and I can tell you right now our agency with this real time Crime Center was fabulous. That's how we got the guy we started out with. We don't know anything to where we had a tag. We had a vehicle description and we've got an area where we saw the person. So be proud, be proud of your law enforcement. All right, thanks folks. We'll get back to you.