Reactions pour in as authorities hold gunman in second Trump assassination attempt
Posted on 09/16/2024
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The son of Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspected gunman in a second assassination attempt on former President Trump, says his father hated Trump but argued he was not a violent person.
Oran Routh told the Daily Mail that his father disliked Trump "as every reasonable person does," adding that he himself was not a fan. He reportedly expressed disbelief that his father could resort to violence and target the former president, however.
"He's my dad and all he's had is couple traffic tickets, as far as I know," the son said. "That's crazy. I know my dad and love my dad, but that's nothing like him."
"He said he was at the beach, but I thought that meant the outer banks in Hawaii," he said. "I didn't ask him for more information because we've had a falling out. We've grown apart."
Routh has been living in Hawaii with his longtime girlfriend for multiple years, the Mail reported.
"He's not a violent person," Oran added. "He's a hard worker and a great dad. He's a great dude, a nice guy and has worked his whole f**king life."
Authorities said Routh allegedly shoved the muzzle of his rifle through a chain-linked fence about 300 to 500 yards away from Trump while the former president was playing golf.
Routh fled the scene and was quickly apprehended.
Trump was rushed to safety shortly after Secret Service agents fired on Rout. The gunman was lying in wait just one hole away from the former president when he was discovered.
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Palm Beach County, Florida, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw joined Fox News to explain the investigation into the second assassination attempt against former President Trump on Monday.
Bradshaw said authorities are looking into whether the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh , had a place where he was staying locally in Florida. Routh's main residence has been in Hawaii in recent years.
Bradshaw confirmed that Routh is being held in the Palm Beach county jail ahead of his court appearance later Monday.
"Right now, its about gathering some more forensics if we can and see where the gun came from," Bradshaw said.
He went on to say that Routh has not spoken to police, though he could not comment on whether Routh had already obtained legal representation.
Bradshaw credited the Secret Service agents for opening fire on Routh before he could attack the former president. He said the Secret Service patrols at least one hole ahead of Trump when he plays golf.
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Ryan Routh, the man accused of trying to assassinate former President Trump on Sunday, will appear in federal court in West Palm on Monday morning.
Routh is expected to face federal charges, though it is unclear whether he will face state charges.
Routh, a 58-year-old native of North Carolina, was being held at Palm Beach County Jail after authorities captured him Sunday.
As Trump was golfing at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., Secret Service agents fired shots after spotting someone poking a rifle through the fence at the golf course just one hole away from the former president.
The suspect fled, but was authorities quickly captured the suspect, identified as Routh, after a witness shared a photo of his vehicle.
Fox News' David Spunt contributed to this report.
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A Democratic congressman demanded that the U.S. Secret Service expand the protective perimeter around former President Donald Trump following a second assassination attempt on Sunday.
"Two assassination attempts in 60 days on a former President & the Republican nominee is unacceptable," Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., wrote. "The Secret Service must come to Congress tomorrow, tell us what resources are needed to expand the protective perimeter, & lets allocate it in a bipartisan vote the same day."
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he was briefed by the acting director of the Secret Service and applauded the Secret Service "for their quick response to ensure former President Trump?s safety."
"There is no place in this country for political violence of any kind," Schumer wrote. "The perpetrator must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., appeared to reference the assassination attempt on Trump indirectly in a social media post.
"Political violence has no place in a democratic society," Jeffries wrote.
Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Florida Democrat running against Republican Sen. Rick Scott for his seat in the upper chamber, also appeared to allude to the assassination attempt with a broader message.
"Gun violence, and political violence, have no place in our society. PERIOD," she wrote on X.
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Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., said the level of resources assigned to former President Trump are a failure, and called on President Biden and Vice President Harris to ask that additional security be assigned to the former president after a second assassination attempt on Sunday.
Lee, a member of the bipartisan House task force investigating the previous attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pa., in July, told ?Fox & Friends? that the threat to Trump is ?extreme? and requires a stronger level of security.
?President Biden and Vice President Harris should call for a full presidential level detail to be assigned to President Trump,? Lee said. ?Clearly the threat to him is extreme and that needs to happen immediately.?
Lee said that spending priorities need to be investigated so that any security ?failures? can be addressed.
?As Congress, we have an obligation to look at the entire Department of Homeland Security, see where there spending priorities are, see where that money is going,? Lee said. ?Absolutely there are places we could be cutting the spending at Homeland Security and those resources may need to go to Secret Service to make sure they have a full complement of agents who are the best and the brightest.?
Secret Service agents thwarted the apparent attempt on Trump?s life while the former president was golfing at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Sunday. Agents fired on a suspect who was poking a rifle through the fence just one hole ahead of the former president.
The suspect was eventually apprehended through the help of a witness who shared a photo of the suspect?s getaway vehicle.
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West Palm Beach State Attorney Dave Aronberg detailed the potential charges that suspect Ryan Wesley Routh could face following the second assassination attempt against former President Trump.
Aronberg appeared on Fox News Monday morning and said Routh will be prosecuted under federal rather than state law, and he will appear in court either Monday or Tuesday. Aronberg said his office had been working on warrants for pre-trial detention before federal authorities took over the case.
Aronberg added that he expects Routh to be charged with aggravated assault with a firearm against a federal law enforcement officer, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
"He's also apparently an ex-felon in possession of a firearm. That can get you up to 10 years in prison. That's the easiest charge to prove of all," Aronberg said. "He's also perhaps being investigated for a threat against a former president, which can get you up to five years in prison."
Aronberg noted that Routh was carrying a GoPro camera at the time of the incident. He said depending on the contents of the camera, it could be used as evidence against Routh.
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Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity spoke with former President Trump on Sunday moments after an apparent assassination attempt in Florida and gave grim details on what may have been the second attempt on Trump's life in just two months.
Hannity joined fellow hosts Eric Shawn and Arthel Neville as the news was breaking, telling viewers he had just spoken with Trump and Miami real estate developer Steven Witkoff, who were on the fifth hole at about 1:30 p.m. when shots rang out at the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach.
"Within seconds, the Secret Service pounced on the president and covered him," Hannity said. "You had snipers with tripods. They knew the direction where the shots had been fired. And they had eyes on the location where the shots had been fired," Hannity said, adding that Secret Service whisked the president away to the clubhouse.
It was later determined that the shots had been fired by Secret Service agents who saw the suspect with an AK-47, which he discarded as he fled in a black Nissan. The man, who was not identified, was arrested a short time later.
Sunday?s shooting comes approximately two months after an assassination attempt on Trump just minutes after he began a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Hannity said Trump's main concern upon reaching the clubhouse seemed to be to make sure everyone was OK. The former president quipped that he regretted not being able to finish the hole he was on.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Bradford Betz
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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., joined ?Fox & Friends? on Monday morning to share details about his meeting with former President Trump at Mar-a-Lago shortly after Secret Service agents thwarted a second assassination attempt on the former president.
?He was in very good spirits,? Johnson said of Trump, ?as you might expect, that?s who he is, so resilient.?
?There has been no leader in the history of America who has been so attacked and has remained so strong and so resilient,? Johnson said. ?He is one-of-a-kind. He is not going to stop fighting for the American people.?
Trump was golfing at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., when Secret Service agents fired on a suspect who was poking a rifle through the fence just one hole ahead of the former president. The suspect was eventually apprehended through the help of a witness who shared a photo of the suspect?s getaway vehicle. The incident comes two months after Trump survived a previous assassination attempt during a rally in Butler, Penn.
Johnson said that Trump surviving two assassination attempts was not luck, but rather providence.
?God has spared his life twice now,? Johnson said, adding that he thinks the second assassination attempt has moved Trump?s heart as the former president continues to process the incident.
Johnson also said he believes Trump needs more security following the attempts, noting that a lack of manpower, not funding, is likely holding back additional security coverage.
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Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., blasted the Secret Service and other authorities for not securing the area around former President Trump before another attempted assassination attempt against him on Sunday.
Burchett spoke to Eric Shawn on "Fox News Live" about ongoing details regarding the assassination attempt outside Trump International Golf Club where Trump was playing golf at the time. Authorities have said the suspect, later identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, was 300 to 500 yards before Secret Service opened fire against him.
The congressman wants answers on how the suspect was able to get that close to the former president and revealed that other lawmakers are already demanding more security measures.
"They are already calling now. And you got to ask yourself, why was there not a drone flying over wherever the president is? This is ridiculous," Burchett said.
While he had harsh criticism for the Secret Service, the Tennessee lawmaker complimented the agents who were able to spot and open fire on the suspect.
"The problem is you've got a Secret Service , at least in my opinion, and in the public's eye, that is compromised and that it lacks in leadership. And you've got great agents on the ground, obviously, one who took that shot. But why in the world would anybody be anywhere near the perimeter of this? This line of sight that we talk about is just beyond me. So we've got to get some answers. I don't think we're going to get them during this administration, but hopefully, under the Trump administration, we?ll clean this rat's nest out," Burchett said.
He added, "There is no way in hell that somebody should have been that close to President Trump with an AK Steel or AK-47 or whatever it was with a scope."
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Lindsay Kornick
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The 58-year-old man accused of pointing an AK-47 at former President Donald Trump on Sunday afternoon has a prolific arrest record that spans several decades.
Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested shortly after the incident at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. Authorities said Secret Service agents fired at him after seeing the muzzle of his AK-47 pointing through a chain-link fence one hole ahead of where Trump was playing.
Authorities are treating the episode as an apparent assassination attempt on Trump.
A background check on the name given by officials, Ryan Wesley Routh, revealed that he currently lives in Hawaii and has faced dozens of run-ins with police, stretching back to at least the 1990s.
Routh is a native of North Carolina, where his list of arrests includes simple drug possession, driving without a license, expired inspection and operating a vehicle with no insurance. In addition, the Greensboro News & Record reported in 2002 that Routh was arrested after barricading himself in his roofing company's office during a three-hour standoff that followed a traffic stop in which he put his hand on a gun before fleeing.
Routh moved to Hawaii in 2017, records show. He has since launched another construction company in Hawaii that builds simple housing structures for homeless people, according to a LinkedIn page that appears to belong to Routh.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Emma Colton
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, responded to the second attempted assassination on his running mate, former President Trump.
Vance wrote in a post on social media that he was ?glad? Trump was safe after the incident at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., where the former president was playing a round on Sunday.
?I spoke to [Trump] before the news was public and he was, amazingly, in good spirits,? Vance wrote. ?Still much we don't know, but I'll be hugging my kids extra tight tonight and saying a prayer of gratitude.?
Secret Service agents fired shots after spotting someone hiding in shrubbery and poking a rifle through the fence at the golf course just one hole away from the former president.
The suspect, identified as 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, a native of North Carolina, fled from the golf course, but was quickly captured by authorities after a witness shared a photo of his vehicle.
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Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe is in West Palm Beach today meeting with local law enforcement and members of the Secret Service following a second assassination attempt against former President Trump.
Secret Service Chief Spokesman Anthony Guglielmi confirmed Rowe's presence in a statement to Fox News on Sunday. Rowe will conduct a walkthrough of the site of the shooting later Monday.
Rowe joined the Secret Service in 1999, prior to which he served as a police officer in West Palm Beach.
Trump was declared safe shortly after Sunday's incident, where suspected gunman Ryan Wesley Routh was found lying in wait in bushes just one hole away from the former president. Secret Service agents opened fire on him before he could act. He fled, but was soon apprehended thanks to a witness who photographed his escape vehicle, a black Nissan.
Fox News' David Spunt contributed to this report
Florida authorities say an unknown witness took a photo of the suspected Trump gunman's car after he saw Ryan Welsey Routh flee out of bushes on Sunday.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw delivered a press conference alongside FBI and other law enforcement shortly after the incident Sunday.
"We were able to locate a witness who came to us and said, 'Hey, I saw the guy running out of the bushes. He jumped into a black Nissan," Bradshaw said. He added that the witness took a photo of the vehicle, including its "tag."
The vehicle was later found on I-95 heading toward Martin County. The Martin County's Sheriff's Office then stopped the vehicle and detained Routh.
Police later discovered an AK-47 in the bushes near where Trump was playing golf. It had a scope, and two backpacks were discovered next to it, along with a GoPro.
The son of Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspected gunman in a second assassination attempt on former President Trump, says his father hated Trump but argued he was not a violent person.
Oran Routh told the Daily Mail that his father disliked Trump "as every reasonable person does," adding that he himself was not a fan. He reportedly expressed disbelief that his father could resort to violence and target the former president, however.
"He's my dad and all he's had is couple traffic tickets, as far as I know," the son said. "That's crazy. I know my dad and love my dad, but that's nothing like him."
"He said he was at the beach, but I thought that meant the outer banks in Hawaii," he said. "I didn't ask him for more information because we've had a falling out. We've grown apart."
Routh has been living in Hawaii with his longtime girlfriend for multiple years, the Mail reported.
"He's not a violent person," Oran added. "He's a hard worker and a great dad. He's a great dude, a nice guy and has worked his whole f**king life."
Authorities said Routh allegedly shoved the muzzle of his rifle through a chain-linked fence about 300 to 500 yards away from Trump while the former president was playing golf.
Routh fled the scene and was quickly apprehended.
Trump was rushed to safety shortly after Secret Service agents fired on Rout. The gunman was lying in wait just one hole away from the former president when he was discovered.
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Palm Beach County, Florida, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw joined Fox News to explain the investigation into the second assassination attempt against former President Trump on Monday.
Bradshaw said authorities are looking into whether the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh , had a place where he was staying locally in Florida. Routh's main residence has been in Hawaii in recent years.
Bradshaw confirmed that Routh is being held in the Palm Beach county jail ahead of his court appearance later Monday.
"Right now, its about gathering some more forensics if we can and see where the gun came from," Bradshaw said.
He went on to say that Routh has not spoken to police, though he could not comment on whether Routh had already obtained legal representation.
Bradshaw credited the Secret Service agents for opening fire on Routh before he could attack the former president. He said the Secret Service patrols at least one hole ahead of Trump when he plays golf.
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Ryan Routh, the man accused of trying to assassinate former President Trump on Sunday, will appear in federal court in West Palm on Monday morning.
Routh is expected to face federal charges, though it is unclear whether he will face state charges.
Routh, a 58-year-old native of North Carolina, was being held at Palm Beach County Jail after authorities captured him Sunday.
As Trump was golfing at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., Secret Service agents fired shots after spotting someone poking a rifle through the fence at the golf course just one hole away from the former president.
The suspect fled, but was authorities quickly captured the suspect, identified as Routh, after a witness shared a photo of his vehicle.
Fox News' David Spunt contributed to this report.
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A Democratic congressman demanded that the U.S. Secret Service expand the protective perimeter around former President Donald Trump following a second assassination attempt on Sunday.
"Two assassination attempts in 60 days on a former President & the Republican nominee is unacceptable," Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., wrote. "The Secret Service must come to Congress tomorrow, tell us what resources are needed to expand the protective perimeter, & lets allocate it in a bipartisan vote the same day."
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he was briefed by the acting director of the Secret Service and applauded the Secret Service "for their quick response to ensure former President Trump?s safety."
"There is no place in this country for political violence of any kind," Schumer wrote. "The perpetrator must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., appeared to reference the assassination attempt on Trump indirectly in a social media post.
"Political violence has no place in a democratic society," Jeffries wrote.
Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Florida Democrat running against Republican Sen. Rick Scott for his seat in the upper chamber, also appeared to allude to the assassination attempt with a broader message.
"Gun violence, and political violence, have no place in our society. PERIOD," she wrote on X.
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Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., said the level of resources assigned to former President Trump are a failure, and called on President Biden and Vice President Harris to ask that additional security be assigned to the former president after a second assassination attempt on Sunday.
Lee, a member of the bipartisan House task force investigating the previous attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pa., in July, told ?Fox & Friends? that the threat to Trump is ?extreme? and requires a stronger level of security.
?President Biden and Vice President Harris should call for a full presidential level detail to be assigned to President Trump,? Lee said. ?Clearly the threat to him is extreme and that needs to happen immediately.?
Lee said that spending priorities need to be investigated so that any security ?failures? can be addressed.
?As Congress, we have an obligation to look at the entire Department of Homeland Security, see where there spending priorities are, see where that money is going,? Lee said. ?Absolutely there are places we could be cutting the spending at Homeland Security and those resources may need to go to Secret Service to make sure they have a full complement of agents who are the best and the brightest.?
Secret Service agents thwarted the apparent attempt on Trump?s life while the former president was golfing at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., on Sunday. Agents fired on a suspect who was poking a rifle through the fence just one hole ahead of the former president.
The suspect was eventually apprehended through the help of a witness who shared a photo of the suspect?s getaway vehicle.
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West Palm Beach State Attorney Dave Aronberg detailed the potential charges that suspect Ryan Wesley Routh could face following the second assassination attempt against former President Trump.
Aronberg appeared on Fox News Monday morning and said Routh will be prosecuted under federal rather than state law, and he will appear in court either Monday or Tuesday. Aronberg said his office had been working on warrants for pre-trial detention before federal authorities took over the case.
Aronberg added that he expects Routh to be charged with aggravated assault with a firearm against a federal law enforcement officer, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
"He's also apparently an ex-felon in possession of a firearm. That can get you up to 10 years in prison. That's the easiest charge to prove of all," Aronberg said. "He's also perhaps being investigated for a threat against a former president, which can get you up to five years in prison."
Aronberg noted that Routh was carrying a GoPro camera at the time of the incident. He said depending on the contents of the camera, it could be used as evidence against Routh.
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Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity spoke with former President Trump on Sunday moments after an apparent assassination attempt in Florida and gave grim details on what may have been the second attempt on Trump's life in just two months.
Hannity joined fellow hosts Eric Shawn and Arthel Neville as the news was breaking, telling viewers he had just spoken with Trump and Miami real estate developer Steven Witkoff, who were on the fifth hole at about 1:30 p.m. when shots rang out at the Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach.
"Within seconds, the Secret Service pounced on the president and covered him," Hannity said. "You had snipers with tripods. They knew the direction where the shots had been fired. And they had eyes on the location where the shots had been fired," Hannity said, adding that Secret Service whisked the president away to the clubhouse.
It was later determined that the shots had been fired by Secret Service agents who saw the suspect with an AK-47, which he discarded as he fled in a black Nissan. The man, who was not identified, was arrested a short time later.
Sunday?s shooting comes approximately two months after an assassination attempt on Trump just minutes after he began a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Hannity said Trump's main concern upon reaching the clubhouse seemed to be to make sure everyone was OK. The former president quipped that he regretted not being able to finish the hole he was on.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Bradford Betz
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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., joined ?Fox & Friends? on Monday morning to share details about his meeting with former President Trump at Mar-a-Lago shortly after Secret Service agents thwarted a second assassination attempt on the former president.
?He was in very good spirits,? Johnson said of Trump, ?as you might expect, that?s who he is, so resilient.?
?There has been no leader in the history of America who has been so attacked and has remained so strong and so resilient,? Johnson said. ?He is one-of-a-kind. He is not going to stop fighting for the American people.?
Trump was golfing at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., when Secret Service agents fired on a suspect who was poking a rifle through the fence just one hole ahead of the former president. The suspect was eventually apprehended through the help of a witness who shared a photo of the suspect?s getaway vehicle. The incident comes two months after Trump survived a previous assassination attempt during a rally in Butler, Penn.
Johnson said that Trump surviving two assassination attempts was not luck, but rather providence.
?God has spared his life twice now,? Johnson said, adding that he thinks the second assassination attempt has moved Trump?s heart as the former president continues to process the incident.
Johnson also said he believes Trump needs more security following the attempts, noting that a lack of manpower, not funding, is likely holding back additional security coverage.
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Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., blasted the Secret Service and other authorities for not securing the area around former President Trump before another attempted assassination attempt against him on Sunday.
Burchett spoke to Eric Shawn on "Fox News Live" about ongoing details regarding the assassination attempt outside Trump International Golf Club where Trump was playing golf at the time. Authorities have said the suspect, later identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, was 300 to 500 yards before Secret Service opened fire against him.
The congressman wants answers on how the suspect was able to get that close to the former president and revealed that other lawmakers are already demanding more security measures.
"They are already calling now. And you got to ask yourself, why was there not a drone flying over wherever the president is? This is ridiculous," Burchett said.
While he had harsh criticism for the Secret Service, the Tennessee lawmaker complimented the agents who were able to spot and open fire on the suspect.
"The problem is you've got a Secret Service , at least in my opinion, and in the public's eye, that is compromised and that it lacks in leadership. And you've got great agents on the ground, obviously, one who took that shot. But why in the world would anybody be anywhere near the perimeter of this? This line of sight that we talk about is just beyond me. So we've got to get some answers. I don't think we're going to get them during this administration, but hopefully, under the Trump administration, we?ll clean this rat's nest out," Burchett said.
He added, "There is no way in hell that somebody should have been that close to President Trump with an AK Steel or AK-47 or whatever it was with a scope."
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Lindsay Kornick
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The 58-year-old man accused of pointing an AK-47 at former President Donald Trump on Sunday afternoon has a prolific arrest record that spans several decades.
Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested shortly after the incident at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla. Authorities said Secret Service agents fired at him after seeing the muzzle of his AK-47 pointing through a chain-link fence one hole ahead of where Trump was playing.
Authorities are treating the episode as an apparent assassination attempt on Trump.
A background check on the name given by officials, Ryan Wesley Routh, revealed that he currently lives in Hawaii and has faced dozens of run-ins with police, stretching back to at least the 1990s.
Routh is a native of North Carolina, where his list of arrests includes simple drug possession, driving without a license, expired inspection and operating a vehicle with no insurance. In addition, the Greensboro News & Record reported in 2002 that Routh was arrested after barricading himself in his roofing company's office during a three-hour standoff that followed a traffic stop in which he put his hand on a gun before fleeing.
Routh moved to Hawaii in 2017, records show. He has since launched another construction company in Hawaii that builds simple housing structures for homeless people, according to a LinkedIn page that appears to belong to Routh.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Emma Colton
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, responded to the second attempted assassination on his running mate, former President Trump.
Vance wrote in a post on social media that he was ?glad? Trump was safe after the incident at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Fla., where the former president was playing a round on Sunday.
?I spoke to [Trump] before the news was public and he was, amazingly, in good spirits,? Vance wrote. ?Still much we don't know, but I'll be hugging my kids extra tight tonight and saying a prayer of gratitude.?
Secret Service agents fired shots after spotting someone hiding in shrubbery and poking a rifle through the fence at the golf course just one hole away from the former president.
The suspect, identified as 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh, a native of North Carolina, fled from the golf course, but was quickly captured by authorities after a witness shared a photo of his vehicle.
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Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe is in West Palm Beach today meeting with local law enforcement and members of the Secret Service following a second assassination attempt against former President Trump.
Secret Service Chief Spokesman Anthony Guglielmi confirmed Rowe's presence in a statement to Fox News on Sunday. Rowe will conduct a walkthrough of the site of the shooting later Monday.
Rowe joined the Secret Service in 1999, prior to which he served as a police officer in West Palm Beach.
Trump was declared safe shortly after Sunday's incident, where suspected gunman Ryan Wesley Routh was found lying in wait in bushes just one hole away from the former president. Secret Service agents opened fire on him before he could act. He fled, but was soon apprehended thanks to a witness who photographed his escape vehicle, a black Nissan.
Fox News' David Spunt contributed to this report
Florida authorities say an unknown witness took a photo of the suspected Trump gunman's car after he saw Ryan Welsey Routh flee out of bushes on Sunday.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw delivered a press conference alongside FBI and other law enforcement shortly after the incident Sunday.
"We were able to locate a witness who came to us and said, 'Hey, I saw the guy running out of the bushes. He jumped into a black Nissan," Bradshaw said. He added that the witness took a photo of the vehicle, including its "tag."
The vehicle was later found on I-95 heading toward Martin County. The Martin County's Sheriff's Office then stopped the vehicle and detained Routh.
Police later discovered an AK-47 in the bushes near where Trump was playing golf. It had a scope, and two backpacks were discovered next to it, along with a GoPro.
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