Apex car wash evacuated after Trump threat sparks federal response

A routine afternoon at Tidal Wave Auto Spa on Lake Pine Drive turned into a federal security response when Apex police shut down the car wash, evacuated the property and brought in the Secret Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation bomb squad after a person made public threats referencing President Donald Trump.

Police said the man was walking around making “active threats” toward Trump and that messages on his vehicle were “political messages.” The first alert went out just before 2:30 p.m., and the scene was still active at 3:30 p.m., showing how quickly a local business strip in Wake County became a law-enforcement staging area.

Authorities said the person was taken into custody and there was no active threat to the community once officers secured the scene. No injuries were reported, and the reports reviewed did not say that any device was found. Even so, the response was large enough to pull in federal agents and the SBI bomb squad, a sign that officials treated the possibility of violence or an explosive threat with caution.

Apex police described the Secret Service and FBI involvement as standard procedure for political threats. That federal attention put a familiar commercial site under an unusual security lens, with helicopters overhead and officers asking people to avoid the area while they investigated the vehicle and the messages written on its back windshield.

For Apex and the surrounding Wake County business corridor, the impact was immediate: one car wash was emptied, traffic around Lake Pine Drive slowed, and a neighborhood errand became a multi-agency incident tied to a national political figure. Police had not publicly identified the man in the reports reviewed, and officials said the scene was contained, but the episode underscored how quickly a threat aimed at Trump can trigger a broad response far from Washington.