A fitness buff carrying a US flag and shouting about US President Donald Trump stormed the hotel lobby of Trump’s Miami-area golf resort early on Friday and opened fire at a chandelier. He then waited for police to arrive, and exchanged gunfire with officers who shot him in the legs and arrested him.
The motive for the shooting at Trump National Doral Miami at about 1:30am was not immediately clear, but Miami-Dade County Police Department Director Juan Perez said the man pointed his gun at several people and shouted “anti-Trump” rhetoric before waiting for police to confront him.
“We don’t know what his intentions were in the long term, but we know what he was doing at the time — he was trying to engage our police officers in some kind of ambush-type attack,” Perez said. “He did succeed, and he did lose.”
One responding officer broke a wrist, but no resort employees or guests were hurt.
Trump was not at the suburban golf resort at the time.
Perez identified the suspect as 42-year-old Jonathan Oddi, who lives in a condominium about a 1.6km away.
Oddi took a flag from a flagpole at the resort and draped it over the counter in the lobby, where he pointed his gun at several people, but only fired into the ceiling and light fixtures overhead until police officers arrived, Perez said.
Oddi was expected to face various criminal charges.
Video footage showed the conscious suspect being wheeled into a hospital on a gurney, and police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta said Oddi remained hospitalized in a good condition on Friday afternoon.
Oddi’s attorney, Rae Shearn, said her client was a fitness instructor.
She said it was too early to say anything more.
“I am conducting my own investigation and have no statement in regards to what occurred or what didn’t occur or what may have precipitated that event,” Shearn said by telephone.
Neighbors and patrons of a nearby gym said they often saw Oddi lifting weights, but rarely interacted with the beefy man beyond casual greetings.
“He was always in the gym,” said Lina Diaz, who lives on the same floor as Oddi. “He seemed like a normal guy, nothing aggressive or weird.”
Oddi’s neighbors woke up on Friday morning to police tape blocking a driveway to their building, and officers and media gathered at its entrances.
“You never know who is living next door to you. It is sad and shocking,” Diaz said.
Oddi worked as a dancer and entertainer, owns a small dog and was born in South Africa and grew up in Argentina, one friend, Luis David Gonzalez, told the Miami Herald and the Sun Sentinel newspapers.
Gonzalez, who said he worked out with Oddi every day, was bringing coffee and eggs to Oddi on Friday morning when he heard the news.
“I’m surprised and confused,” Gonzalez said in a Miami Herald interview. “I knew him 10 years. He’s a good person. I’m very surprised he did this.”
Court records in Miami-Dade and Broward counties show a slew of misdemeanor traffic infractions for Oddi, but no felony arrests.
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