Authorities had not publicly released the suspect’s name when law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Ryan Wesley Routh is the man captured by Florida deputies following the second assassination attempt on disgraced former President Donald Trump.
Routh was taken into police custody Sunday while FBI agents scoured his car and examined his life for clues to his actions and possible motives, after he allegedly crouched outside a Florida golf course with a rifle while Trump played about 400 yards away.
Authorities have said around 1:30 p.m. Sunday, a Secret Service agent working on Trump’s protective detail noticed a man holding a rifle behind a chain-link fence.
The agent fired at the man, who fled, leaving behind what officials said was a rifle, backpacks containing bullet-resistant ceramic plates, and a GoPro video recording device, police officials said. Investigators said it seemed the suspect had planned to record his attack on the former president.
The rifle was described by police as an AK-47 type weapon — more common in other countries than the United States. The weapon was also equipped with a scope for better accuracy at distance, officials said.
An alert passerby saw the man fleeing and took a picture of his vehicle, including the license plate, officials said. With that information, local police were quickly able to find him on busy Interstate 95, where he was pulled over and surrendered without incident, they said.
Routh indicated he was a Trump supporter in 2016 before turning against him by backing 2020 Republican presidential primary candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley.
“While you were my choice in 2106, I and the world hoped that president Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we all were greatly disappointment and it seems you are getting worse and devolving,” Routh posted in June 2020. “I will be glad when you gone.”
Routh advised President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, in separate social media posts, to visit those injured at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.
“You and Biden should visit the injured people in the hospital from the Trump rally and attend the funeral of the murdered fireman. Trump will never do anything for them,” he wrote in a post directed at Harris
Trump, who surrendered Afghanistan to the Taliban in February 2020 and has been openly fond of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, is seeking to gain support after this second assassination attempt in order to stem damage from his embarrassing debate performance.
Oran Routh said his father is passionate about Ukraine, had traveled to the war torn country and volunteered to provide aid to troops defending the country from Russian forces that invaded in 2022.
“My dad went over there and saw people fucking fighting and dying,” said Oran Routh during a brief telephone interview when asked about his father. “He … tried to make sure shit was cool, and shit was not cool.”
Referring to the first president ever convicted of a crime, who days earlier at the presidential debate would not answer whether he wanted Ukraine to win its war against Russia, Oran Routh said: “Meanwhile, this guy’s sitting behind his fucking desk, not doing a goddamn thing.”
Oran Routh told CNN via text that his parent is “a loving and caring father, and honest hardworking man.”
The son wrote, “I don’t know what’s happened in Florida, and I hope things have just been blown out of proportion, because from the little I’ve heard it doesn’t sound like the man I know to do anything crazy, much less violent.”
A review of spcial media posts associated with an account under Ryan Routh’s name also show Ukraine was an important cause to him.
Two statements in August 2023 addressed Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
One said Routh was in Kyiv and wanted to create a tent city for foreigners in a local park in hopes that would prompt more people from abroad to “raise great support and equipment”.
The other suggested that Zelensky ask Congress to put all members of the American military on paid leave “so they can fight as civilians in Ukraine”.
Public records show Routh, 58, as living most recently in Kaaawa on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, at a property also linked to a person named Kathleen Shaffer.
No one answered when a reporter called a number associated with the address Sunday.
The 58-year-old North Carolina man spoke with the New York Times about Americans volunteering to aid the war effort in Ukraine.
He had no military experience, but said he traveled to the country after Russia’s invasion.
Tanya Lukyanova, who interviewed Routh while she was a journalist at Semafor, described him as “a man who had committed his life to the struggle for Ukraine — but whose own allies also viewed him with skepticism.”
A blog on the crowdsourcing fundraising site GoFundMe, posted in 2022 by a Kathleen Shaffer, said she was raising funds to support her fiancé, Ryan, who “put his life at home on hold and traveled to Kyiv in April to support the people of Ukraine. He plans on staying for at least 90 days and stays at a hostel with a military unit.”
Photos on the page show a slim, blond man resembling other pictures of Routh that have circulated online and in news media.
That blog said Routh was coordinating international volunteers and had helped “send 120 drones to the front lines. Wow!”
The page had collected pledges totaling $1,865 out of a goal of $2,500, which Shaffer said in the post would go toward paying for flags, tactical gear, hostel lodging and other supplies for volunteers.
Public records also show that Routh, originally from North Carolina, faced criminal charges for two separate incidents in 2002 for possession of a weapon of mass destruction.
The man arrested on suspicion of possibly trying to assassinate former president Donald Trump spent his recent years in search of a mission — trying to muster up a ragtag army to defend Ukraine and writing a book about his failed efforts, according to law enforcement officials and his online data trail.
“We can probably purchase some passports through Pakistan, since it’s such a corrupt country,” he said in an interview from Washington.
Routh also apparently wrote a 291-page book last year about his disillusionment surrounding Ukraine, according to an Amazon listing that was selling the tome for $2.99.
The book, which purports to be about Ukraine’s “unwinnable war” and the “fatal flaw of democracy,” includes pages of graphic photos, including beheadings, dead children, and bloodied corpses.
In a section of the book focused on Iran, the author said he “must take part of the blame” for electing a “brainless” president, in an apparent reference to Trump. “You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal,” the book declares.
Authorities have not publicly released Routh’s name. Public records show Routh, 58, as living most recently in Kaaawa on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, at a property also linked to a person named Kathleen Shaffer. No one answered when a Washington Post reporter called a number associated with the address Sunday.
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A blog on the crowdsourcing fundraising site GoFundMe, posted in 2022 by a Kathleen Shaffer, said she was raising funds to support her fiancé, Ryan, who “put his life at home on hold and traveled to Kyiv in April to support the people of Ukraine. He plans on staying for at least 90 days and stays at a hostel with a military unit.” Photos on the page show a slim, blond man resembling other pictures of Routh that have circulated online and in news accounts.
That blog said Routh was coordinating international volunteers and had helped “send 120 drones to the front lines. Wow!” The page had collected pledges totaling $1,865 out of a goal of $2,500, which Shaffer said in the posting would go toward paying for flags, tactical gear, hostel lodging and other supplies for volunteers.
Public records also show that Routh, originally from North Carolina, faced criminal charges for two separate incidents in 2002 for possession of a weapon of mass destruction.
He also was charged in December of that year, when, according to an account from the News & Record newspaper, Routh, armed with a machine gun, barricaded himself in a United Roofing building in Greensboro for three hours. Authorities say the incident began after he was pulled over for a traffic stop. Police ultimately arrested him without incident.
In that second case, he pleaded guilty to driving without a license and registration, resisting a public officer and carrying a concealed firearm, while the weapon of mass destruction charge was dropped, public records show.
That was a sharp departure from a younger Routh, profiled in the same newspaper in 1991 for his assistance in helping defend a woman against an alleged rapist.
Roth, then 25, was wearing a coat and tie in a large photo accompanying the story. He was dubbed a “super citizen” and awarded a Law Enforcement Oscar by the Greensboro chapter of the International Union of Police Association. The headline on the story: “Crimefighting pays.”
Last year, Routh was interviewed by the New York Times for a story about Americans’ often faltering efforts to provide military aid and support to Ukraine.
Routh told the paper that after spending several months in Ukraine in 2022, he planned to move Afghan soldiers who had fled from the Taliban to Ukraine to fight.