The sun was beginning to set over Lake Worth Lagoon in Palm Beach on Tuesday night when Damien Stuck pulled his big white truck into the small parking lot with a commanding view of Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s home. And he pulled out a huge oil painting from the trunk.
Above: The former president, his fist clenched tightly, his face contorted and dripping with blood, standing beneath a tattered American flag.
“I came here to have him sign my work,” said the young 30-year-old, after driving from Tampa with his wife and child in the hope of meeting his idol, who has become the subject of his artistic creation. “But security prevented me from approaching the gate of his club. So I’m going to stay here, hoping he’ll see me and come here to put his signature on my painting.”
At the end of the day in Florida, Donald Trump was not there, held up by campaign obligations in Michigan. But the security surrounding his residence and his private club in Palm Beach was there, with its ” checkpoints ” controlling the vehicles advancing on the South Bridge towards Ocean Boulevard, its police cars with flashing lights activated, strategically installed at the two entry points of the residential enclave of the ex-president shouting its luxury between ocean and lagoon, then its sentry boxes, installed in the gardens of the property to scan the horizon and better see the threats coming from afar.
A system reinforced since last Sunday, after a possible second assassination attempt in two months on the populist, foiled by the Secret Service, near his golf course in West Palm Beach, barely 7 kilometers away.
Between desolation and resignation
“The police presence has always been very visible here since he became president,” summed up Vivian Treves, a retiree who has lived for 13 years just a few blocks north of the Republican’s residence, in impeccable French. “Since Sunday, it’s been worse. Of course, many here are complaining about it. I have friends who are business owners who are losing customers because of the road closures and the detours that come with them. But what do you want us to do? It’s his private residence. It has to be protected.”
Between desolation and resignation, Donald Trump’s neighbors took in Monday’s announcement by Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw that security had now been placed at its “highest possible level” around Mar-a-Lago. It had already been reinforced after July 13 and the attempted assassination of the politician in Pennsylvania, but was eased in August after protests by some local residents annoyed by the permanent closure of the section of street in front of the billionaire’s private club, which provides access to Palm Beach from the south.
The restriction was then lifted when Donald Trump was not at home. The arrest of a man who decided to camp, hidden in bushes, with food and firearms, along the golf course where the former president had decided to go play on Sunday with a major donor to the party, put an end to this exception.
“It impacts people’s daily lives here,” said John Scarlett, who owns a cigar and wine store in the downtown area of this affluent part of Florida. “For people who come from out of town to work here, they have to get up earlier, lose 30 to 40 minutes on the road during rush hour to get around the bridge closure and deal with the traffic jams it creates at other points of entry into the city.”
The checkpoints also lengthen the workdays of many workers who come to build, maintain or renovate the multimillion-dollar streets and residences in Donald Trump’s immediate neighborhood. These workers are now forced to undergo exhaustive inspections of vehicles and materials every time they enter the enclave.
“It’s more complicated, but we live with it,” adds Mr. Scarlett, avoiding comment on the threats now weighing on the former president, who has been spewing hate speech, personal attacks and divisions for several years. “There is no politics to be made on the safety of one of the residents of the city,” says the merchant.
Investigation
That’s not the view of Governor Ron DeSantis, who on Tuesday brought the apparent second assassination attempt into the political sphere by openly sowing doubts about the ability of the American central government to shed light on the planning of this crime and to adequately punish its author, Ryan Wesley Routh, indicted Monday at the federal level on charges of illegal possession of a firearm. The man never fired a shot. He never had Donald Trump in his sights.
The Republican governor, an opponent of Donald Trump who has become his ally in the current election campaign, has subsequently announced that Florida authorities will launch their own investigation into this possible assassination attempt on the former president. “We have a very strong interest in holding this suspect accountable,” Ron DeSantis said at a press conference.
It is not uncommon for federal and state authorities to conduct simultaneous investigations into the same crime, with states sometimes bringing more severe charges than the federal level, and vice versa.
In the parking lot of Bingham Island, the gateway to Mar-a-Lago, Damien Stuck had already made up his mind on the case. “We should be able to accept other people’s opinions without resorting to guns and violence,” he said. “I think the first attempt on Donald Trump’s life woke up a lot of people like me who supported him, but didn’t say it too loudly, for fear of being judged and facing the hatred of others. And the second attempt reinforces our decision to stop hiding and to affirm our support without fear,” he concluded.
This report was funded with support from the Transat International Journalism Fund-The Duty.