Suspected Trump golf course gunman tried to join Ukraine war, faced weapons charges

The man in custody said he’d traveled to Ukraine in recent years, and local records show a standoff with North Carolina police.

The man arrested on suspicion of possibly trying to assassinate former president Donald Trump spent his recent years in search of a mission — trying to muster a ragtag army to defend Ukraine and writing a book about his failed efforts, according to law enforcement officials and his online data trail.

Ryan Wesley Routh was taken into police custody Sunday while FBI agents scoured his car and examined his life for clues to his actions and possible motives, according to multiple law enforcement officials. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to confirm the identity of the man who allegedly crouched outside a Florida golf course with a rifle while Trump played about 400 yards away.

Video captured the moment authorities arrested the suspect in a potential assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump on Sept. 15. (Video: The Washington Post)

Authorities have not publicly released Routh’s name. Public records show Routh, 58, as living most recently in Kaaawa on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, at a property also linked to a person named Kathleen Shaffer. No one answered when a Washington Post reporter called a number associated with the address on Sunday.

A blog on the crowdsourcing fundraising site GoFundMe, posted in 2022 by a Kathleen Shaffer, said she was raising funds to support her fiancé, Ryan, who “put his life at home on hold and traveled to Kyiv in April to support the people of Ukraine. He plans on staying for at least 90 days and stays at a hostel with a military unit.” Photos on the page show a slim, blond man resembling other pictures of Routh that have circulated online and in news accounts.

That blog said Routh was coordinating international volunteers and had helped “send 120 drones to the front lines. Wow!” The page had collected pledges totaling $1,865 out of a goal of $2,500, which Shaffer said in the posting would go toward paying for flags, tactical gear, hostel lodging and other supplies for volunteers.

Public records also show that Routh, originally from North Carolina, faced criminal charges for two separate incidents in 2002 for possession of a weapon of mass destruction.

He pleaded guilty to the first charge in April 2002, a court docket filing shows, though no other details were publicly available.

He also was charged in December of that year, when, according to an account from the News & Record newspaper, Routh, armed with a machine gun, barricaded himself in a United Roofing building in Greensboro for three hours. Authorities say the incident began after he was pulled over for a traffic stop. Police ultimately arrested him without incident.

In that second case, he pleaded guilty to driving without a license and registration, resisting a public officer and carrying a concealed firearm, while the weapon of mass destruction charge was dropped, public records show.

That was a sharp departure from a younger Routh, profiled in the same newspaper in 1991 for his assistance in helping defend a woman against an alleged rapist. Routh, then 25, was wearing a coat and tie in a large photo accompanying the story. He was dubbed a “super citizen” and awarded a Law Enforcement Oscar by the Greensboro chapter of the International Union of Police Associations. The headline on the story: “Crimefighting pays.”

Last year, Routh was interviewed by the New York Times for a story about Americans’ often faltering efforts to provide military aid and support to Ukraine. Routh told the paper that after spending several months in Ukraine in 2022, he planned to move Afghan soldiers who had fled from the Taliban to Ukraine to fight.

“We can probably purchase some passports through Pakistan, since it’s such a corrupt country,” he said in an interview from Washington.

Routh also apparently wrote a 291-page book last year about his disillusionment surrounding Ukraine, according to an Amazon listing that was selling the tome for $2.99.

The book, which purports to be about Ukraine’s “unwinnable war” and the “fatal flaw of democracy,” includes pages of graphic photos, including beheadings, dead children and bloodied corpses.

In a section of the book focused on Iran, the author said he “must take part of the blame” for electing a “brainless” president, in an apparent reference to Trump. “You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal,” the book declares.

Authorities have said that around 1:30 p.m. Sunday, a Secret Service agent working on Trump’s protective detail noticed a man holding a rifle behind a chain-link fence.

The agent fired at the man, who fled, leaving behind what officials said was a rifle, backpacks containing bullet-resistant ceramic plates, and a GoPro video recording device, police officials said. Investigators said it seemed the suspect had planned to record his attack on the former president.

The rifle was described by police as an AK-47-type weapon — more common in other countries than the United States. The weapon was also equipped with a scope for better accuracy at distance, officials said.

An alert passerby saw the man fleeing and took a picture of his vehicle, including the license plate, officials said. With that information, local police were quickly able to find him on busy Interstate 95, where he was pulled over and surrendered without incident, they said.

The FBI has taken the lead in the investigation, but officials cautioned that they may first seek to hold him on local charges. Authorities have said Routh’s actions appear to be an assassination attempt that was thwarted before he could get a shot off.

Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said the filing of local search warrants and charges “does not preclude the federal charges that could be coming.”

When police stopped Routh on the highway behind the wheel of a black Nissan, they brought to the scene the witness who had earlier taken a picture of the car as it sped away, officials said. The witness quickly identified the man in the car as the one he had seen running away from the Secret Service agents, police said.

When he was taken into custody, the man showed little emotion, Martin County Sheriff William Snyder told WPTV.

“He never asked, ‘What is this about?’ Obviously, law enforcement with long rifles, blue lights, a lot going on. He never questioned it,” Snyder said.