A woman who blasted through the barricades around Donald Trump’s Florida estate, drawing gunfire from law enforcement, is an opera singer from Connecticut who family friends insist ‘wouldn’t hurt a soul’.
Hannah Roemhild refused to appear in court on Saturday hours where she faces two state counts of aggravated assault on an officer, following a wild chase through Palm Beach that ended at the president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Prosecutors say she was "obviously impaired" and they do not believe she targeted Mar-a-Lago deliberately, or wanted to harm the president, who was not there at the time.
The situation unfolded just before noon when an off-duty highway patrol trooper approached Roemhild as she danced on the roof of a rented Jeep at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach.
She ignored him, jumped in the car, and drove away, triggering a 70mph chase along Ocean Drive and towards Mar-a-Lago.
She then reportedly swerved around concrete barriers and through two checkpoints, causing Secret Service agents and Palm Beach County deputies to open fire on her vehicle.
The continued on, at some point picking up a female relative, before being caught at a motel near Palm Beach International Airport.
According to her social media, she has appeared in several Connecticut operas and said she was appearing in a performance in Palm Beach last week.
Marilyn Malcarne, a friend of the Roemhild family, said the behaviour is completely out of character and she "wouldn't hurt a soul."
"She's incredibly talented,. She has really studied her opera singing and she has an amazing voice."
She is now set to be brought before the court on Monday.
