Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspected gunman involved in an apparent assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump at the Trump International Golf Club in Florida on Sunday, was charged with possession of a weapon of mass destruction more than 20 years ago.
“I figured he was either dead or in prison by now,” Tracy Fulk, the charging officer in the case, tells WIRED. “I had no clue that he had moved on and was continuing his escapades.”
According to court records from the Guilford District Court in North Carolina obtained by WIRED, Routh was arrested by the Greensboro Police Department on December 16, 2002.
Local reporting from Greensboro News and Record in 2002 states that Routh was pulled over by police during a traffic stop. Routh then drove to the business United Roofing, where he proceeded to barricade himself for three hours, the police said at the time.
Fulk says he was well known in the area, and that police would get alerts about him allegedly related to, as she remembers, weapons and explosives.
“One night I recognized him in his vehicle,” she says. “I knew he didn’t have a driver’s license, so I stopped him right in front of his roofing shop, which was what used to be on Lee Street in Greensboro. He stopped, and as I approached his truck he pulled a sack away from the center of the seat, and I saw a gun. So of course I drew my gun and started saying, ‘Hey! Show me your hands, show me your hands.’ And he just basically pulled into his driveway and ran into his house. So we ended up having a [Special Response Team] callout and a big standoff for a couple of hours before they went in and we arrested him.”
Routh was charged with possession of a fully automatic machine gun, referred to in court filings as a weapon of mass destruction. He was also charged with carrying a concealed weapon, as well as driving without a valid license and resisting, delaying, and obstructing law enforcement, according to Greensboro News and Record.
While the disposition of the case isn’t entirely clear, Routh did plead guilty to carrying a concealed gun.
Trump was not harmed on Sunday while playing golf. Law enforcement apprehended Routh after a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle sticking out of a perimeter fence on the course and engaged with the threat, firing at least four rounds in that direction. It’s unclear whether the gunman fired a shot. Law enforcement later found an AK-47 style rifle with a scope and a GoPro in the bushes.
The gunman was reportedly seen fleeing the scene and getting into a black Nissan; a witness took photos of the car and license plate, said Palm Beach County sheriff Ric Bradshaw at a Sunday press conference. “We had that information,” said Bradshaw. “Our real-time crime center put it out to the license plate readers, and we were able to get a hit on that vehicle on I-95.” Routh was arrested soon after.
The FBI has said they are investigating “what appears to be an attempted assassination” of Trump. This is the second assassination attempt on the former president; the first occurred on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“My resolve is only stronger after another attempt on my life,” Trump wrote in a fundraising email after the apparent assassination attempt. “I will never slow down. I will never give up. I WILL NEVER SURRENDER!”
Fulk says Routh was well known for getting into armed confrontations with police. “I wasn’t the only one who had a standoff with him,” she says. “We always knew he had weapons.” Guilford County court records show Routh was charged dozens of times, often for driving-related offenses, going back to the early 1980s. In regards to why he wasn’t in jail, Fulk says, “All we can do is arrest them, and then obviously it goes into the court system and they decide all of that. It’s frustrating at times.”
The Greensboro Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a lawyer who represented Routh in his 2003 divorce.
In 2023, Routh told The New York Times that he traveled to Ukraine after the Russian invasion to aid Ukraine and support the war effort. He said he planned to recruit Afghan soldiers who fled the Taliban to fight for Ukraine. There is no evidence that Routh traveled to Ukraine or was successful at recruitment. Social media accounts that appear to be controlled by Routh have been taken down, but were reportedly full of erratic posts espousing Covid conspiracies, threats against Russia, and in support of politicians of a variety of ideologies.
Additional reporting by David Gilbert.
