The Secret Service said Sunday that its agents “opened fire on a gunman” with an AK-47 near the edge of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Media such as the AP news agency, CNN or CBS reported that a 58-year-old man named Ryan Wesley Routh was the person arrested.
The two television channels describe him as a homebuilder in Hawaii who had a decades-long arrest record and who posted regularly about politics and current affairs, often criticizing Trump.
With interest in the war in Ukraine
One of the issues discussed by R. on his social networks was Ukraine’s war against the Russian invasion. “I am ready to fly to Krakow and go to the Ukrainian border as a volunteer to fight and die,” he wrote on the X platform in March 2022, according to The New York Times.
In late April 2022, AFP news agency interviewed R. in Kyiv at a rally in support of Ukrainians trapped in the port city of Mariupol. “Putin is a terrorist and must be terminated, so we need everyone to stop what they are doing and come here now,” he said at the time.
Under President Joe Biden, the United States has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. His vice president and Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, has said she will maintain this support if she is elected to succeed him in January, but Trump did not clarify in a debate this week whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war.
What is known about Ryan Wesley Routh
Ryan Wesley Routh, a former construction contractor with a long criminal record, is the prime suspect in the attempted assassination of Donald Trump while he was golfing in Palm Beach. It is the second time Trump has faced an assassination attempt, and the Secret Service has failed to protect the former Republican president.
Ryan Wesley Routh has no military training, though he did try to recruit volunteers to fight against Russian forces that invaded Ukraine. “I am willing to fly to Krakow and go to the Ukrainian border to volunteer, fight, and die,” Routh posted on X (formerly Twitter) in early 2022.
Secret Service agents were moving behind and in front of the cart carrying the former president when they spotted a semi-automatic rifle barrel sticking out of a fence next to Trump’s golf course. Without wasting a second, the security guard fired at the man believed to be Routh.
“There were four shots,” revealed Rafael Barros, a special agent deployed in Miami.
Routh reportedly abandoned his rifle with a telescopic sight, two backpacks and a GoPro camera, and got into his black Nissan pickup truck to flee the scene of the crime. At that moment, a local resident took a photo of the main suspect and made it available to local authorities.
A short while later, 60 kilometers from the golf club, Routh was arrested on the I-95 highway.
At the time of the attack, Trump was playing golf with Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate investor. The two friends were standing on the sixth hole and talking about the presidential campaign when the shots rang out.
Without wasting a second, the Secret Service guards used their bodies to protect Trump and Witkoff as they left the links of the imposing club located in Palm Beach on a golf cart.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw measured the distance from the sniper spot to the sixth hole of the golf course, where Trump was located, at 365 metres in a straight line.
“With a rifle and scope like he has, that’s not a very long distance,” Sheriff Bradshaw said.
The Secret Service beefed up Trump’s protective detail following the July 13 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. That reinforcement, which included additional agents and better intelligence on the ground, could have played a key role in preventing a direct attack on the former president.
However, as in Butler’s case, the most significant problems in protecting Trump are tied to the security perimeters of a specific site, even one that should be known precisely because it belongs to the Republican candidate.
The would-be shooter positioned himself in the bushes along the perimeter of the golf club and had Trump within range.
“I imagine the next time I come to a golf course, there will probably be a few more people around the perimeter,” Sheriff Bradshaw said.
A Biden administration spokesman said there was no evidence linking Routh to a political organization or a conspiracy hatched abroad. This would be a similar case to the one in Butler, where Thomas Crooks acted alone and used an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.
Seven weeks before the election, Trump’s security has become a matter of state. The Republican candidate has been the target of two assassination attempts in a short space of time, and security checks have failed time and again.
Routh is in FBI custody and questioning is expected to begin today.
#Suspect #Trump #assassination #attempt #identified #Página #Newspaper
