The man arrested Sunday in connection with a suspected assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump was a longtime Greensboro resident with a lengthy criminal history.
Fifty-eight-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested after a Secret Service agent saw and shot at someone with a gun hiding at the edge of a Trump-owned golf course in West Palm Beach where the former president was playing.
In a news conference, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said a witness saw a man flee the scene after the gunshots and took photos of the man’s black Nissan SUV, including its license tag. Routh was taken into custody several miles away after his truck was identified.
Law enforcement officers found an AK-47-type rifle, two backpacks, and a GoPro camera where the suspect was seen at the golf course.
Routh is an enthusiastic supporter of Ukraine in its war with Russia and once traveled there, where he told a Newsweek Romania interviewer that the Ukrainian military wouldn’t let him enlist because of his age and lack of military experience. He also said he had recently moved to Hawaii.
He told a New York Times interviewer in Ukraine that he was a construction contractor.
In multiple social media posts, Routh wrote about the importance of backing Ukraine and posted that he was trying to help veterans of the Afghan special forces join the Ukrainian military.
In 2023, Routh self-published a book, in which he urged Iran to kill Trump, AP reported. He also wrote that he once voted for the former president.
State records show he had multiple convictions in North Carolina, including several for possession of stolen goods, several for carrying a concealed weapon, hit and run, and, in 2002, possession of a weapon of mass destruction.
According to a story that year in the Greensboro News & Record, Routh barricaded himself in a business for a few hours after fleeing an attempted traffic stop. He was in possession of a fully automatic firearm.
Routh was registered as unaffiliated to vote according to Guilford County records. He voted in the Democratic primary this spring.
