Askume September 15 –A gunman attempted to assassinate Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the Trump golf course in Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, authorities said.
CNN, Fox News and the New York Times, citing unnamed law enforcement officials, said the suspect was 58-year-old Hawaiian Ryan Wesley Routh. The FBI declined to comment and Askume could not independently confirm his identity.
What we know so far about the suspected shooter:
gun barrel in the bushes
The Secret Service said its agents were on the golf course with Trump and that an agent guarding Trump’s front hole spotted the barrel of a gun in some bushes near the property line.
Several agents surrounded the gunman and shot him at least four times. The gunman then threw away his AK-47 rifle, two backpacks, a Go Pro camera and other items and fled in a black Nissan car.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said a witness took a photo of the suspected shooter’s car and license plate and turned it over to authorities.
Soon after, deputies from neighboring Martin County stopped the suspect on Interstate 95 and took him into custody.
Posts about Ukraine, democracy
Askume searched for Ryan Routh’s profiles on X, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and public access to the Facebook and X profiles was removed a few hours after the shooting.
Three accounts bearing Rouse’s name indicated he was an ardent supporter of Ukraine’s war against Russia.
On April 21, Rouse released “You Can Tell the Price”.
According to the New York Times, it interviewed Rouse in 2023 and wrote an article about Americans volunteering to help in the war in Ukraine. Rouse told the Times that he traveled to Ukraine and spent several months in 2022 trying to recruit Afghan soldiers who had fled the Taliban to fight in Ukraine.
In October 2020, Rouse expressed his support for Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and mocked Biden by calling him “Sleepy Joe”.
Rouse tagged Biden in a post on Twitter earlier this year: “@POTUS your campaign should be called something like KADAF. Keep America a democracy and free. Trump general election should be MASA… Americans should be like this, democracy is above all at the ballot box, we can’t lose.
The suspected gunman’s son, Adam, who works at a hardware store in Hawaii, told Askume he had not heard about the latest attempt on Trump’s life and had “no idea”, adding that he did not think his father would do such a thing.
Later, when the reporter called the store again, a colleague told her that Adam had gone home because of an emergency.
Rouse’s other son, Oran, said in a statement to CNN, “I don’t want to comment other than on his character as a loving and caring father… I have no idea what happened in Florida and my “I wish it would have happened” sentiments are greatly exaggerated.
