Final month, FBI Director Kash Patel introduced that the Secret Service found a “suspicious” searching stand close to Palm Seashore Worldwide Airport with a direct sight line to the place President Donald Trump exits Air Drive One.
“The FBI has since taken the investigatory lead,” Patel stated in an announcement, “flying in assets to gather all proof from the scene and deploying our cellphone analytics capabilities.”
Now, two weeks later, a Florida reptile hunter who calls himself the Python Cowboy says he’s satisfied the FBI is barking up the fallacious tree.
Mike Kimmel, proprietor of Martin County Trapping and Wildlife Rescue, advised NBC Information that the elevated stand has been there for years and the one thriller is whether or not it was arrange by a hunter, birder or wildlife photographer.
“After we had first seen it, Joe Biden was president,” Kimmel stated. “And it regarded outdated and dilapidated on the time. It by no means gave like a suspicious vibe.”
Knowledgeable trapper for over a decade, Kimmel operates throughout southern Florida, eradicating invasive species like Burmese pythons, inexperienced iguanas and feral hogs. He additionally guides searching journeys, with the assistance of his specifically skilled canine — Bother, Rooster and Rowdy, amongst others.
The waterways surrounding the Palm Seashore airport are well-known to Kimmel. They’re prime spots for searching iguanas.
Kimmel stated he first observed the tree stand recognized by Patel a few years in the past.
“It by no means crossed our minds that it will be utilized by somebody taking a shot on the president or something like that,” Kimmel stated.
In July 2024, a would-be murderer managed to fireplace a number of rounds at Trump throughout a marketing campaign occasion in Butler, Pennsylvania, hanging him within the ear. Two months later, the Secret Service arrested a person who was noticed hiding within the bushes, with a rifle, on the Trump Worldwide Golf Membership in West Palm Seashore. A Florida jury in late September discovered him responsible of attempting to assassinate Trump.
Kimmel stated the Secret Service reached out to him after the primary assassination try and advised him to chorus from occurring hunts within the space for the following week or so.
“We revered that,” he stated. “We’re on the market with air weapons and all the pieces. It will possibly look suspicious.”
In case you spend as a lot time in that space as he does, Kimmel stated, there’s loads of different issues that you may see.
“There’s homeless camps on the market,” he stated. “There’s every kind of trash. I discovered a useless physique on the market. The tree stand is a really small blip.”
“I feel the FBI is losing their time,” he added.
One in all Kimmel’s searching guides, Joseph “JR” Entry, additionally recalled first seeing the stand a few years in the past and considering little of it. He stated he and the opposite guides discover the FBI’s sudden consideration amusing and a bit perplexing.
“I feel it’s a giant stink about nothing, to be sincere with you,” Entry advised NBC Information.
An FBI spokesperson stated the company continues to investigate the searching stand supplies for forensic clues at its laboratory in Quantico, Virginia. Up to now, the investigation has not recognized any people related to the thriller tree perch, the spokesperson added.
Kimmel’s exploits catching — and generally getting bitten by — large pythons are the stuff of legend in Florida.
The video clips he posts on YouTube and Instagram — displaying him belly-flopping onto pythons in alligator-infested swamps and bagging serpents like a pregnant 16-footer with 60 eggs in its stomach the dimensions of grapefruits — usually draw hundreds of views and media consideration.
In 2024, he took a blind canine on a hunt with him, and the pooch nicknamed “Helen Killer” helped him snag a 9-foot-python that additionally couldn’t see. The feat was chronicled within the Miami Herald, which described him as “one in all Florida’s best-known wildlife trackers.”
4 years earlier, Kimmel appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and introduced with him the top of a monster snake that just about acquired the perfect of him.
“I virtually bled out in the course of the Everglades,” Kimmel advised Rogan. “This snake — 17 foot 7 inches, 135 kilos. On the time, that’s about what I weighed, so it was a good Everglades battle royale.”
Kimmel stated he understands why the Secret Service would discover the tree stand suspicious, given its proximity to an airport Trump frequents and the truth that he has been focused earlier than.
However he thinks there’s little probability even probably the most superior technical evaluation would yield a lot of something.
“It’s been simply sitting out within the parts – with the solar straight on, it rains – all the pieces like that,” Kimmel stated. “I might think about any type of DNA or fingerprints could be rapidly eradicated off of it, however that’s not my space of experience.”
From his perspective, the authorities ought to have already moved on.
“I might anticipate them to analyze one thing like that for positive,” Kimmel stated, “however I’d additionally type of anticipate them to determine in a short time that it’s primarily nothing.”
“All you bought to do,” he added, “is discuss to us.”
