Details have emerged about the suspect who was arrested after an “apparent assassination attempt” on Donald Trump – with reports the alleged gunman said he had previously flown to Ukraine to help its fight against Russia.
Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was identified by three senior law enforcement officials, Sky News’s US partner network NBC News reported.
He was detained after gunshots were heard near to where Mr Trump was playing at his Trump International Golf Course in West Palm Beach in Florida on Sunday.
Follow latest: Suspect was ‘lying wait for Trump’
An AK-47 type assault rifle weapon and a scope, two backpacks and a GoPro device were recovered at the scene, Palm Beach County sheriff Ric Bradshaw said in a news conference.
It comes just nine weeks after Mr Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was injured in an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.
What we know about the suspect
According to records, Routh lived in North Carolina for most of his life before moving to Kaaawa, Hawaii, in 2018, the Associated Press reported.
In Hawaii, he and his son appeared to operate a company building sheds, according to an archived version of the webpage for the business.
In relation to the incident at Mr Trump’s golf course on Sunday, Routh’s son has told CNN that he hopes “everything has been blown out of proportion” and that it would be unlike his father to “do anything crazy, much less violent”.
Oran Routh said: “Ryan is my father, and I don’t have any comment beyond a character profile of him as a loving and caring father, and honest, hardworking man… He’s a good father, and a great man, and I hope you can portray him in an honest light.”
It is not clear how many children Routh has and whether Oran is the same son who the suspect ran a business with.
Meanwhile, records show Routh registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina in 2012, most recently voting in person during the state’s Democratic Party primary in March 2024.
Campaign finance records show Routh has made 19 small political donations totalling around $140 (£106) since 2019 to ActBlue, a political action committee that supports Democratic candidates.
Although he appears to have supported the Democrats in recent years, it seems Routh voted for Mr Trump in the 2016 presidential election before changing his mind about him during his time in office.
Routh wrote in a social media post in June 2020: “While you were my choice in 2106 (sic), 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.
“I will be glad when you gone.”
Previous brushes with the law
The Washington Post reports that public records show Routh faced criminal charges over two separate incidents in 2002 for possession of a weapon of mass destruction – which can refer to a machine gun.
He pleaded guilty to the first charge in April 2002, but no other details were publicly available, according to the newspaper.
The News & Record reported that later that year he was also charged after barricading himself in a United Roofing building in Greensboro for three hours, armed with a machine gun.
The incident began after he was pulled over for a traffic stop, but police eventually arrested him without incident.
In that case, he is said to have pleaded guilty to driving without a licence and registration, resisting a public officer and carrying a concealed firearm – while public records reportedly indicate the weapon of mass destruction charge was dropped.
It came years after he was featured in a profile by the News & Record newspaper in 1991 for his assistance in helping defend a woman against an alleged rapist.
Under the headline “Crimefighting pays”, the then 25-year-old was described as a “super citizen” after being awarded a Law Enforcement Oscar by the Greensboro chapter of the International Union of Police Association.
The gun, backpacks and GoPro found on Donald Trump’s golf course
Support for Ukraine
Routh is reported to have said he travelled to Ukraine in an attempt to help the country in its fight against Russia.
A video has emerged of an interview he gave to Newsweek in 2022 where he spoke about his efforts to recruit volunteers for Ukraine’s ground forces.
He says in the footage: “This conflict is definitely black and white… This is about good versus evil.”
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Video of Trump shooting suspect
Routh later says in the video: “Why world leaders are not sending military (to Ukraine) is beyond me. We’re going to have to elect new leaders the next go round, that have a backbone and have the fortitude to say ‘we’re not going to tolerate this type of behaviour (from Russia)’.”
He became emotional as he said: “When you talk to a 20-year-old guy, that’s sold everything he owns to come here to fight, that is heroism.”
Last year, Routh did an interview with the news platform Semafor in his role as the self-appointed director of a group he started called the International Volunteer Center – part of his efforts to try to help bring foreign troops into Ukraine.
He complained that the Ukrainian government was being too rigid about admitting some foreign soldiers.
“Ukraine is very often hard to work with… They’re afraid that anybody and everybody is a Russian spy,” he said.
Ryan Routh during a rally for support of Ukraine in Kyiv in 2022.
Pic: Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine Suspilne/Reuters
Routh had tried to enlist Afghan conscripts by presenting himself as an off-the-books liaison for the Ukrainian government.
He told Semafor he was working to find a house in Pakistan to temporarily lodge Afghans hoping to fight in Ukraine.
Routh also expressed strong support for Ukraine in dozens of posts on X in 2022, saying he was willing to die in the fight and that “we need to burn the Kremlin to the ground”.
“I AM WILLING TO FLY TO KRAKOW AND GO TO THE BORDER OF UKRAINE TO VOLUNTEER AND FIGHT AND DIE… Can I be the example We must win,” Routh said in an X post in March 2022.
Routh also used his personal Facebook account last year to encourage foreigners to fight in the war.
It has also emerged Routh wrote a book about the conflict where he described how he “gave up and quit”, a decision he says makes him “the worst of humans”.
The book, called Ukraine’s Unwinnable War, was previously on sale on Amazon for £2.25.
He writes: “I am the failure, the hypocrite that wants the world to change but let communism beat me down and exhaust me and send me home.
“A mere 5 months and I run for home, not even with the first bit of mud, or cold, or the first bullet, and I am beaten and exhausted in the simplest elementary ground floor challenges of good and evil, and I fail.”
