Authorities identified the suspect behind an apparent assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump as Ryan Routh, a 58-year-old who lived in Hawaii, according to multiple reports on Sunday night.
Secret Service agents tasked with protecting Trump at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida, said they fired shots toward an armed man on Sunday afternoon. Trump was on the course when agents spotted a person hiding in the bushes and the muzzle of an AK-style weapon sticking through the greenery several hundred yards from where Trump was playing, local authorities said.
An agent fired toward the man, who dropped his weapon and fled in an SUV, authorities said. He was apprehended in a neighbouring county and taken into custody.
Multiple outlets identified the suspected gunman as Routh, citing anonymous officials. The Associated Press reports he lived in North Carolina before moving to Kaaawa, Hawaii, in 2018, where he and his son ran a company that built sheds.
The New York Times added it spoke to Routh for a story about the ongoing war in Ukraine in 2023 and how Americans in the US hoped to volunteer to aid the country’s defense against Russia. Routh told the paper at the time he had traveled to the region and hoped to recruit Afghan soldiers to help fight for Ukraine.
“In my opinion everyone should be there supporting the Ukrainians,” he told Times reporter Thomas Gibbons-Neff last year.
Social media accounts that appeared to belong to Routh were frequently peppered with posts about the war and at times encouraged Trump to take action on other matters while he was in office. He also expressed support for former Reresentative Tulsi Gabbard (Democrat, Hawaii), who was running for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020, saying she would “tirelessly negotiate peace deals in Syria, Afghanistan, and all turmoil zones.”
The AP notes, however, that his allegiance had shifted on his social media accounts and he appeared to be more supportive of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the latter of whom is now the Democratic nominee for the White House.
Routh had several encounters with law enforcement when he lived in North Carolina. The Times reports a man with the same name and of the same age as him was arrested in 2002 after a standoff with police. The Greensboro News & Record reported at the time the man in that case had barricaded himself inside a building with a fully automatic weapon.
The News & Record reported late on Sunday that federal authorities had searched an address linked to Routh but only spent a few minutes at the location. A neighbour told the publication the man had not lived there for a few years.