Would-be Trump assassin Identified as 58-year-old Ryan Wesley Routh

A suspect is in custody after an apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida on sunday, September 15. 

The suspect was identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, aged 58. 

CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller reported Sunday afternoon that Routh’s social media accounts have focused on his “self-proclaimed involvement” in the war in Ukraine, including his supposed effort to recruit soldiers to fight in the conflict. Routh also claimed to have fought in Ukraine as it continues to hold off Russia’s invasion. 

Miller said that Routh has been living in Hawaii and was formerly a construction worker in North Carolina. 

Trump was playing golf Sunday afternoon at his Trump International Golf course. 

At around 1.30pm a suspect was seen poking a rifle through the fence around the perimeter of the course, Ric Bradshaw the Palm Beach County Sheriff said at a press conference. 

The suspect was near the fourth or fifth hole. This was one or two holes ahead of where Trump was playing. 

Trump was between 400 and 500 yards from the gunman, Sheriff Bradshaw said at the news conference. 

A U.S. Secret Service was one hole ahead of Trump’s group on the course. 

He spotted the suspect in the shrubbery by the fence and “immediately engaged that individual,” Bradshaw said. 

The officer opened fire. The suspect abandoned the weapon and escaped in a Nissan SUV. 

A witness told police he saw the suspect running out of the bushes, jumped into a black Nissan vehicle, Bradshaw said. The witness took a photograph of the vehicle, which allowed police to track the suspect via the licence plate. 

Bradshaw said the suspect had an AK-style rifle with a scope, two backpacks hanging on a fence and a GoPro camera. 

Photos shared by law enforcement show two black bags hanging from a chain-link fence in the shrubbery outside the course, with the firearm propped up in between them and pointed through a gap in the fence. The GoPro camera was hanging on the fence to the side. 

The suspect fled in the SUV and was later apprehended in a nearby county without a weapon, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. 

Police took the witness to the scene of the arrest and the witness identified the suspect, Bradshaw said.

Teri Barbera, a spokesperson for the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, said there was only one person of interest in the investigation who was being interrogated. Barbera did not have information about a possible motive.