Trump golf course shooter named as Ryan Wesley Routh as suspect is arrested for assassination attempt in Florida

Ryan Wesley Routh, the man named as the suspect in a possible assassination attempt near Donald Trump's Florida golf club, was calm and emotionless when he was arrested Sunday.

08:55 16/09/2024

Registered Democrat Routh, 58 is in custody after the terrifying incident at Trump International Club almost exactly two months after a separate assassination attempt against Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The suspect was found unarmed, as a backpack, GoPro camera and AK-47 style rifle that a gunman left behind when fleeing the scene have already been located.

Martin County Sherriff William D. Snyder said Routh 'was not displaying a lot of emotions' when police arrested him. 

Snyder added that the suspected shooter was 'relatively calm' and 'never asked' why he was being detained.

Ryan Wesley Routh, the man named as the suspect in a possible assassination attempt near Donald Trump 's Florida golf club, was calm and emotionless when he was arrested Sunday

Routh, 58 is in custody after the terrifying incident at Trump International Club almost exactly two months after a separate assassination attempt against Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania

Routh, a registered Democrat, was convicted in 2002 of possessing a weapon of mass destruction, per online North Carolina Department of Adult Correction records but could not provide details about the case.   

But a News & Record story from 2002 says a man with the same name was arrested after a three-hour standoff with police. 

According to his oft-updated X feed, Routh went from voting for Trump in 2016 to supporting Tulsi Gabbard in 2020 to demanding Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy form a unity team in 2024.

FEC filings show him donating to everyone from Gabbard to Andrew Yang to Elizabeth Warren to Tom Steyer in the 2020 Democrat primary.

During the George Floyd protests, he was preaching anti-police rhetoric but also used both 'BlackLivesMatter' and 'AllLivesMatter' as a hashtag.  

He wrote a tweet to Trump in June 2020 saying: 'While you were my choice in 2106 [sic], I and the world hoped that president Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we all were greatly disappointment and it seems you are getting worse and devolving; are you retarded; I will be glad when you gone'.

Wesley's son, Oran Routh, said his father is not a violent person and did not even believe him to own a gun.