Posted on 09/16/24
| News Source: Arutz-7
Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspect who pointed a rifle with a scope into former US President Donald Trump’s golf club on Sunday, did not have a line of sight of the former President when he was caught by agents, Secret Service acting Director Ronald Rowe Jr. said in a news conference on Monday.
Routh was on the public side of the golf course fence, Rowe said, as quoted by CNN.
“As former President Trump was moving through the fifth fairway, across the course and out of sight of the sixth green, the agent, who was visually sweeping the area of the sixth green, saw the subject armed with what he perceived to be a rifle and immediately discharged his firearm,” he said.
Rowe continued, “The subject who did not have line of sight to the former President fled the scene. He did not fire or get off any shots at our agents.”
Meanwhile Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said Routh “didn’t even get close to getting a round off.”
“What we did yesterday proves that the system can work because the suspect didn’t even get close to getting a round off and we apprehended him and brought him to justice,” said Bradshaw.
Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey B. Veltri of the FBI Miami Field Office said that the FBI is “still exploring” whether Routh acted alone.
Routh, 58, faces charges of possessing a firearm, despite a prior felony conviction, and possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
More details about the shooter were reported Sunday by The New York Post, which said Routh’s LinkedIn profile shows that he attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, but relocated to Hawaii sometime around 2018.
Routh is described on LinkedIn as “mechanically minded” and enjoying “ideas and invention and creative projects with artistic flair.”