Florida man arrested for allegedly making ‘violent’ threats against President Trump
A Florida man has been arrested for making “violent” threats against President Trump, police said Saturday.
Shannon Depararro Atkins allegedly made posts on social media targeting the commander in chief.
Atkins, 46, was arrested just before 7:30 p.m. Friday during a traffic stop in West Palm Beach — where he was allegedly found with three baggies of cocaine in his pocket, cops said.
Authorities arrested Atkins after receiving a Jan. 19 tip pointing to disturbing posts the man had allegedly been sharing in the days before Trump’s inauguration.
“America needs one good bullet to be saved,” Atkins allegedly wrote on Facebook on Jan. 19, a day before Trump was inaugurated for his second term.
Two hours later the same day, Atkins confessed on his Facebook page that he’d been banished from Elon Musk’s X.
“I’ve been banned from “X”, because I said I hope and pray someone kills him,” he wrote in an apparent reference to Trump. “History is supposed to repeat itself. We haven’t had an assassination in years.”
He allegedly kept going, writing later in the day, “Bullets please. Please Jesus! Save America” over an image of a meme calling inauguration day a “day of mourning.”
“That gives you a flavor of some of the posts that this gentleman posted,” West Palm Beach Police Chief Tony Araujo said at a news conference, adding that the posts reflected “violent rhetoric.”
Atkins had been sharing his negative feelings for Trump for months, but volume dramatically increased leading up to and following the inauguration.
On Friday — shortly before the arrest — he reposted a meme showing the president with his late first wife Ivanka Trump that included the phrase, “I hope they get back together soon.”
Atkins allegedly included a row of smiling emojis with the post.
Atkins allegedly admitted to the violent social media posts — but claimed he was simply “joking.”
“Folks, this is not a joke. Nothing of that sort is a joke,” Araujo said.
“In today’s climate, you really can’t say things like this. We have incident after incident, example after example of when these threats become real. And we take these very seriously.“
Voter registration details show that Atkins voted Democrat since at least 2008.
He is believed to own Big Mama’s House of Sweets, a baked goods shop in West Palm Beach.
Atkins was being held at the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Main Detention Center and faces a drug possession charge as well as one count of written or electronic threats to kill, do bodily injury, or conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism, a second-degree felony.
The secret service will determine whether they will pursue additional, federal charges over Atkins’ social media threats.
The arrest comes months after Trump survived two assassination attempts, including a shooting during a Butler, Pa. rally in July in which a bullet grazed the then-candidate’s ear.
Additional reporting by Georgia Worrell
