The Secret Service has confirmed that 21-year-old Austin Tucker Martin of Cameron, North Carolina was shot and killed by two agents and a Palm Beach County sheriff's deputy after he entered the secure perimeter of President Donald Trump's estate in Florida early Sunday morning.
Around 1:30 a.m., he walked up to the secure perimeter and went through a gate when it opened for employees to leave. Investigators say when Martin was ordered to drop the shotgun and fuel can he was carrying, he put down the can, but raised the shotgun to a shooting position, prompting the officers to fire their weapons and neutralize the threat.
Ken Valentine, who served 24 years with the Secret Service, including 10 years with the presidential protection detail, is "very disappointed" that Martin lost his life.
"You don't want that to come to fruition," he tells AFN. "However, when you've breached a secured area carrying a shotgun, then you really should not expect any other result."
He laments that Martin "kind of got what he asked for" and wonders whether mental illness was involved.
"Or was there just a death wish that he had to go in there like that and to not be compliant?" Valentine asks.
Martin reportedly worked as a groundskeeper at a golf course in his local area and created and sold sketches or illustrations of golf courses. According to a cousin, his family supports Trump, though voting records list Martin as unaffiliated. He is described as someone who rarely talked politics and did not even know how to use a gun.
He was quiet, generous, and "wouldn't even hurt an ant," the cousin said.
Martin is believed to have purchased the shotgun while driving to Florida. His family had reported him missing just before the incident.
While investigators have not identified a motive, other people close to Martin describe him as well-meaning but increasingly frustrated about the economy and "fixated" on government secrecy around the release of Jeffrey Epstein-related files.
Trump often spends weekends at Mar-a-Lago, but he was at the White House at the time of the incident.
