Police confirmed Sunday that a man was arrested near where former US President Donald Trump was playing golf and that an AK-47 rifle with a telescopic sight was found, which he allegedly intended to use to attack the Republican candidate.
The FBI said it responded to the incident in West Palm Beach, Florida, and is “investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination of former President Trump,” the second in two months, following the one on July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The incident occurred around 1:30 p.m. local time (17:30 GMT) and the first thing that It was learned from the Republican campaign a few minutes later that the former president (2017-2021) was fine.
“There were shots fired near me, but before the rumors start to get out of hand, I want you to hear this first: I am Safe and Well!” Trump himself said in a statement shortly afterward.
In a second message, Trump said that “his determination (to return to the White House) is even stronger after another assassination attempt” and invited his followers to vote for him in the presidential elections on November 5. Sheriff Ric Bradshaw offered the first official details and it was learned that it was Secret Service agents who saw a man with a rifle next to the fence of the golf course belonging to Trump.where he was playing, about 300-500 meters away.
The Secret Service shot him and he ran from some bushes where he was hiding to the vehicle he tried to escape in, a black pickup truck whose license plate a witness managed to photograph.
As a result, the individual was arrested a few minutes later on the road in his vehicle. The weapon was found in the bushes, as well as two backpacks and a GoPro sports camera.
The suspect is a 58-year-old man who is very active on social media, named Ryan Wesley Routh, who has lived in North Carolina and Hawaii and had been convicted more than 20 years ago for possession of a machine gun, according to local media.
In 2002, according to court records accessed by several media outlets, He was convicted of possession of a weapon of mass destruction: a fully automatic machine gun.
Records also show convictions for carrying a concealed weapon, possession of stolen property and hit-and-run.
According to NBC, more than 100 criminal charges have been filed against Ryan Routh in North Carolina. The son of the arrested man told CNN that it is not like his father to “do something crazy, much less violent.”
“I don’t know what happened in Florida, and I hope things have just been blown out of proportion,” he told the outlet. Law enforcement officials said at the press conference that the golf course is surrounded by bushes and that when someone hides in them they are practically “out of sight.”
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2024-09-17 06:50:23