(The Center Square) – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis says state officials will conduct an investigation after an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump occurred on Sunday.
In a social media post, DeSantis announced the investigation and said “The people deserve the truth about the would be assassin and how he was able to get within 500 yards of the former president and current GOP nominee.”
The FBI and the U.S. Secret Service are also investigating. Trump was not harmed and taken from the golf course immediately after the incident.
According to Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said U.S. Secret Service agents opened fire on but didn’t hit a man who raised an assault-style rifle near Trump International Golf Club while Trump was playing a round of golf. Agents found two backpacks, the rifle and a GoPro camera at the scene after the gunman fled.
The man, identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, was later arrested on Interstate 95 by members of the Florida Highway Patrol, the Martin County Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement agencies.
Routh has three North Carolina convictions, including a 2002 charge of possession of a “weapon of mass destruction,” which is defined by state law as a fully-automatic weapon, rocket, bomb or grenade. He received probation on all three convictions for offenses that included carriage of a concealed weapon without a permit, hit and run, possession of stolen property, and driving with a suspended license.
Bradshaw said at a news conference on Sunday that Trump doesn’t receive the same level of protection as a sitting president. If he were, the area around the golf course would have had different security as determined by the Secret Service, the sheriff said.
“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,” Bradshaw said. “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.”
The Secret Service was hit hard by criticism for perceived lackadaisical security efforts after the Pennsylvania attempt, when Trump was grazed in the ear from a shot fired from a nearby rooftop.
That shooter was killed by counterfire from security detail, but the incident cost Kimberly Cheatle, the then-director of the U.S. Secret Service, her job when she resigned.
