On Sept. 15, 2024, authorities apprehended a man in the vicinity of the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in what they are calling an apparent assassination attempt on former U.S. President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who was playing on the golf course.
A Secret Service agent walking ahead of Trump noticed a rifle barrel "poking out of the tree line," Markenzy Lapointe, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said at a news conference the following day. He was located closest to the sixth hole as Trump was moving towards the fifth, said Ron Rowe, acting director of the Secret Service, in the same news conference.
The agent fired towards the rifle, prompting a man to run to a black Nissan SUV, a witness reported. The former president was not in the man's line of sight, and the man did not fire any shots when he was fired at, Rowe said.
A witness was able to take a photograph of the vehicle, whose license plate was registered to a 2012 Ford truck that had been reported stolen, officials said.
Forty-five minutes later on the Interstate 95, authorities arrested Ryan Wesley Routh, a 58-year-old resident of Hawaii who had been convicted in North Carolina in 2002 for possession of a weapon of mass death and destruction. In 2010 he was convicted of multiple counts of possession of stolen goods, according to the criminal complaint against him, which you can read in full here . Lastly, the FBI revealed, he had been the subject of a tip for being a felon in possession of a firearm.
According to Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw , Routh left two backpacks containing ceramic tile hanging on a fence along the golf course. These backpacks were positioned on either side of an SKS-style rifle with a scope, Lapointe said, contradicting previous reports that the weapon was an AK-47 rifle:
There was also food in a plastic bag and a GoPro camera.
Bradshaw said Routh was about 300 to 400 yards from the former president at the time he was spotted. Trump's protective detail immediately took him to a safe location, according to Rowe. The acting Secret Service director insisted that Trump's increased protection apparatus ordered by U.S. President Joe Biden was in place when the incident took place, including counter-snipers and a helicopter for aerial surveillance. He added that their response to the threat was "exemplary."
According to police records, a phone belonging to the suspect suggested he had been waiting at that location for nearly 12 hours, Jeffrey Veltri , special agent in charge of the FBI's Miami field office, said during the Sept. 16 news conference. The criminal complaint also said Routh's phone had been pinged in that location from about 1:59 a.m. to 1:31 p.m., when he fled.
Routh was charged with two federal gun crimes: possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession and receipt of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, Lapointe said. The FBI was investigating him for a possible assassination attempt. While the agency couldn't confirm that Routh had worked alone, it said it hadn't received any information showing otherwise.
This game of golf was not on Trump's official schedule, and the authorities could not say whether or how the suspect knew Trump would be on the course that day.
Local law enforcement released a video of Routh's arrest , revealing a calm demeanor. When interrogated, he asked for legal representation, according to Veltri.
Little is known about his motive, though he had been vocal about being disappointed in Trump, whom he'd voted for in 2016, a 2020 post from his now-suspended X account revealed:
After Routh's arrest, rumors circulated about his background, including the false claim that he had appeared in a BlackRock commercial . Various pundits also made claims attempting to pigeonhole his politics .
We will update this story as law enforcement releases their findings.
Sources:
Criminal Complaint against Ryan Routh. 24-mj-8441-RMM, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q1mevgIgTbJJC0AIH2BmmyOwgGzN-bIo/view?usp=sharing .
LIVE: Press Conference after FBI Says Trump Target of Apparent Assassination Attempt. 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W1Yi_Np64U .
LIVE: Trump Assassination Attempt Press Conference. Video, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUwgq7Mlpdk .
NBC News: New Video Shows Arrest of Trump Apparent Assassination Attempt Suspect. 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytaXZXapNU4 .
Local News
