Suspect in Trump Assassination Attempt Is 58-Year-Old Ryan Routh

Susanne Barton and Ben Westcott

15 September 2024 at 9:20 pm·1-min read

(Bloomberg) -- The suspect in the apparent assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump at his golf course in Florida’s West Palm Beach is 58-year-old Ryan Routh, according to federal officials.

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Routh was taken into custody by police on Sunday after what the FBI has called a possible assassination attempt targeting Trump.

Routh was born in 1966 and has been living in Hawaii, CNN reported. He has eight arrests on his record for minor offenses and at one point was working as a construction worker in North Carolina, according to the news network.

An account on the X social media platform purported to be Routh’s had a large number of posts condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including messages calling for foreign soldiers to defend Ukraine, according to CNN. The profile has since been suspended.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that the paper had interviewed Routh in 2023 for an article about Americans volunteering to aid the war effort in Ukraine. Routh had no military experience and claimed that he had traveled to the country himself in 2022 to recruit Afghan soldiers to fight there, according to the newspaper.

CNN said that authorities were looking into Routh’s background to try to determine what his motives might have been. Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw told reporters at a briefing that authorities had found an AK-47-style rifle with a scope, two backpacks and a GoPro camera at the site of the incident.

--With assistance from Michael Heath.

(Updates with new details on Routh)