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Florida Man Arrested For Making Violent Threats Against Trump

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A man in West Palm Beach, Florida, located just across the bridge from President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate, has been arrested and charged with making a series of violent threats against the president over social media.

As a result of a tip to the FBI, 46-year-old Shannon Depararra Atkins was arrested on Friday night. He has since been charged with one count of written or electronic threats to kill, do bodily injury or conduct a mass shooting or act of terrorism. Atkins was arrested after a traffic stop and was found in possession of cocaine, leading to an additional drug charge.

Atkins lives a few miles from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, though police do not believe he was making a serious effort to get there when he was arrested. The suspect is currently being held without bail and is being represented by a public defender.

West Palm Beach police announced that the U.S. Secret Service will be reviewing the case to determine whether any federal charges will be filed.

Shannon Depararra Atkins

West Palm Police Department Chief Tony Araujo told reporters that Atkins allegedly made the threats over Facebook. On January 19, an anonymous tip from Okeechobee, Florida claimed that Atkins made a number of “disturbing” posts about assassinating the president.

“They were violent rhetoric, political views and his opinion aimed at the president,” Araujo told reporters. Upon investigation, Palm Beach detectives uncovered several posts from Atkins “that included the names Lincoln, JFK, Reagan and Trump.”

“Unfortunately one of them is still alive,” Araujo said of one of the posts. “Bullets, please. Jesus save America.” Another post reportedly read: “I’ve been banned from X because I said I hope and pray someone kills him we haven’t had an assassination in years.”

Police stopped Atkins not far from his West Palm Beach home on Friday night and recovered cocaine from one of his pockets. The suspect was arrested without incident, telling police that he was “joking” when he made the social media posts. Officers did not recover a weapon when making the arrest and it is unknown whether Atkins owns a firearm as of this report.

“Folks, this is not a joke,” Araujo told reporters. “Nothing of that source is a joke.”

The arrest was made just a few miles away from the president’s West Palm Beach golf course, where he was nearly assassinated by a gunman this past fall.

On September 15, a Secret Service advance team engaged a would-be assassin after they spotted the barrel of a rifle sticking through a fence on the perimeter of the course. An agent opened fire, causing the suspect to flee roughly 300 yards from the former president’s location.

An eyewitness managed to spot a suspect fleeing the scene, and managed to provide law enforcement with a physical description, as well as a description of the gunman’s vehicle. The suspect, later identified as 58-year-old Ryan Routh, was soon arrested without incident in nearby Martin County.

Routh is currently facing a number of state and federal charges, including attempting to assassinate a presidential candidate and a number of federal firearms charges. The suspected gunman faces up to life in prison if convicted on the most serious charge.

Routh (left) and his alleged sniper’s nest on the outskirts of Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course

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