SUV smashes into security at Mar-a-Lago
‘Obviously impaired’ Middletown woman was fleeing police
PALM BEACH, Fla. — A woman fleeing police smashed her SUV through two security checkpoints Friday near Mar-a-Lago in what authorities said were the actions of an “obviously impaired” driver but not an intentional attack on President Donald Trump’s resort.
She was later arrested at a nearby motel.
Trump was not at the resort, although he was scheduled to arrive there later in the day.
The driver, Hannah Roemhild, 30, of Middletown, Conn., was not “even remotely close” to getting into the “inner perimeter” of the president’s resort in Palm Beach, Palm Beach
County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said at a news conference.
He said Roemhild was “obviously impaired“and that an offduty Florida Highway Patrol officer who was working private security at the Breakers hotel first approached the SUV because she was acting erratically and was dancing on top of the vehicle.
Roemhild refused to open the window or acknowledge the officer, put the car in reverse and began driving away, Bradshaw said. He said the trooper smashed the window and tried to grab the steering wheel, but she was able to drive away.
Roemhild led officers on a pursuit, at times driving on the wrong side of the road at speeds nearing 70 mph, said Major Robert Chandler of the Florida Highway Patrol.
She crashed through two checkpoints near Mar-a-Lago and was speeding toward a third when sheriff ’s deputies and Secret Service agents fired numerous rounds at the SUV. Roemhild kept driving and investigators believe she picked up a female relative before authorities located her car using a license plate reader. Roemhild ran from her car outside a nearby motel and was tackled by a trooper, Bradshaw said.