Police opened fire at a vehicle after two women ran into two checkpoints near Mar-a-Lago on Friday in a car chase. Officials said that the car chase was unrelated to the US President. Donald Trump was in Washington as the incident took place in his palm beach residence. Trump was set to get back to Palm Beach resort later yesterday.
The driver was identified as Hannah Roemhild, 30, who attracted the police's attention when she was dancing atop a car and behaving erratically in the breakers resort in Palm Beach, said the county sheriff Ric Bradshaw. As soon as the police approached her, she took off in a black SUV. The woman was driving in the town at a speed in excess of 70 mph. The police continued to chase her and said that at some point picked up another woman.
"This is not a terrorist thing," Bradshaw told a press conference, adding that Roemhild did not appear to have a police record and had a Connecticut driving license. "This is someone who was obviously impaired somehow and driving very recklessly."
The vehicle crashed through two security points
Sheriff's deputies and Secret Service agents fired on the vehicle after it crashed through two checkpoints and approached a third on the outer perimeter of Mar-a-Lago at about 11:38, Bradshaw said.
"We didn't know if it was someone with a car bomb or someone who was going to hit as many pedestrians as possible," he said, adding that no-one was injured in the incident.
In what appeared to be Roemhild's Facebook page, she identifies herself as an opera singer from Middletown, Connecticut. A January 2017 post on the page shows women protesters wearing pink hats, one holding a sign saying "Not My President" next to a picture of Trump. A June 2017 post shows a cartoon of Donald Duck turned upside down to resemble Trump. Roemhild is likely to face charges of assault on a federal officer, deadly assault on a sheriff's deputy and various traffic charges for driving her car through the checkpoints, Bradshaw said.
"There was clearly no intention," said Bradshaw, who declined to comment on a motive for Roemhild's actions. "I'm not so sure she knew where she was going."
(With inputs from agency)
