The suspect is Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, a self-employed affordable housing builder in Hawaii who also spent time in North Carolina where he voted in the Democratic primary in March. He strongly supported Ukraine in X posts in 2022. Last year, he encouraged foreigners — including Afghan soldiers — on his Facebook account to fight in the war. There have been several court cases involving Routh since the 1990s.
Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, of Hawaii, has been charged by a criminal complaint in the Southern District of Florida with firearms charges related to an incident at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on Sept. 15.
Routh was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession and receipt of a firearm with an obliterated serial number and made his initial appearance today before Magistrate Judge Ryon M. McCabe in the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach. A detention hearing has been scheduled for Sept. 23. The investigation remains ongoing.
According to allegations in the criminal complaint, a Secret Service agent walking the golf course perimeter saw what appeared to be a rifle poking out of the tree line. After the agent fired a service weapon in the direction of the rifle, a witness saw a man later identified as Routh fleeing the area of the tree line. Routh was later apprehended by officers from the Martin County Sheriff’s Office, in coordination with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
The complaint alleges that in the area of the tree line from which Routh fled, agents found a digital camera, a backpack, a loaded SKS-style rifle with a scope and a black plastic bag containing food. The serial number on the rifle was obliterated.
According to the complaint, Routh was convicted of felonies in North Carolina in December 2002 and March 2010.
The FBI is leading the ongoing investigation. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Secret Service are providing assistance.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida and the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division are prosecuting the case.
Martin County Sheriff’s Office Facebook
FORMER US President Donald Trump is safe after a shooting at his Florida golf course at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, and officials believe an armed person was trying to target the former president. Police seized an AK-47 style firearm with a scope after the Secret Service fired at the suspect who was probably 300 to 500 yards away from Trump. A Secret Service officer spotted the barrel of the gun sticking out of a fence.
“We are able to catch a witness that came to us and said, ‘Hey, I saw the guy running out of the bushes, he jumped into a black Nissan and I took a picture of the vehicle and the tag,’ which was great,” said Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw.
Bradshaw said: “In the bushes, where this guy was, is an AK-47 style rifle with a scope; two backpacks, which were hung on the fence and had ceramic tile in them; and a GoPro.”
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_89kmny5AV/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
This is the second attempted assassination on Trump.
According to a Facebook post from the Martin County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, “Based on BOLO information released by Palm Beach County, the Martin County Sheriff’s Office has stopped a vehicle and taken a suspect into custody believed to be connected to a shooting incident at Trump International in Palm Beach County.”
Martin County is north of Palm Beach County, where the incident at Trump International occurred.
