After being injured in the ear by gunfire from a young American, shot dead by police last July, Donald Trump appears to have escaped a second assassination attempt this Sunday. And this, while he was on his golf course in Florida.
The immaculate lawn of the West Palm Beach golf course in Florida is sinking under the feet of the 45th president of the United States. On this Sunday, September 15, after an appearance the day before in Utah on the other side of the country for a fundraiser, Donald Trump decides to take over his club to relax on his own golf course while his election campaign is in full swing. Under a beautiful morning sun, according to the Republican candidate, he unofficially invites a few friends including businessman and donor Steve Witkoff to join him.
“I was playing golf with some of my friends, it was a Sunday morning and it was very quiet, the weather was very nice, everything was beautiful, it was a nice place,” says the Republican billionaire.
As he heads toward the fifth hole of the course not far from a stretch of water, Secret Service agents assigned to protect him sweep the perimeter around the next hole, the sixth. But the game takes a completely different turn.
Four or five shots
At around 1:30 p.m. local time (7:30 p.m. Paris time), one of the agents spotted what he believed to be a rifle sticking out of the bushes surrounding the Trump International Golf Club, a 15-minute drive from his Mar-a-Lago residence. He immediately opened fire.
“All of a sudden we heard gunshots in the air, I think there were four or five, and it sounded like bullets,” Trump said.
Agents who remained with the Republican candidate ordered him to stop, gathered around him and grabbed him. The snipers separated, set up their tripods and aimed at the spot where the shots came from.
Quickly, Donald Trump and his companions jump into golf carts to get away from any potential danger. A danger all the more pressing in people’s minds since the former White House occupant escaped an assassination attempt in mid-July during a rally in Pennsylvania.
A man escapes from the bushes and runs away
As the gunshots rang out, a man ran out of the bushes near the tree-lined fence south of the golf course on Summit Boulevard. A man who had been there for nearly 12 hours, or since 1:59 a.m. Saturday night local time, according to his phone’s location.
He gets into a black Nissan SUV and flees. A woman who witnessed the scene takes a photo of the vehicle and the license plate. This is a major clue for the police.
Second attack on Trump: How violence entered the campaign
“The suspect, who did not have the former president in his field of vision, fled. He did not shoot,” said the acting director of the Secret Service, Ronald Rowe, this Monday during a press conference.
Around the fence of the golf club, still in the same place, between 300 and 500 meters from where Donald Trump was, an arsenal was found, including an SKS-type assault rifle – a weapon with a range of nearly 440 meters – with the serial number erased and mounted with a telescopic sight. Also hanging from the fence of the course, there is a backpack with ceramic tiles identical to those used in bulletproof vests, and a black plastic bag containing food, according to CNN. A GoPro camera too.
45 minutes of escape
At approximately 1:55 p.m., 20 minutes after the Secret Service shooting, the Martin County Sheriff’s Office received an alert that the suspect was heading north on Interstate 95, the main south-north highway on the eastern seaboard of the United States. About 30 Martin County officers set out to search for him. Law enforcement “flooded” the highway.
Once the suspect’s vehicle was located – the license plate of which matched that of a white 2012 Ford truck reported stolen – two large pickups prepared to block his path. After a 45-minute chase, at 2:14 p.m. local time, he was arrested about 70 kilometers from the Trump golf course, on Highway 714 near Palm City in Martin County.
Wearing a pink T-shirt, he gets out of his vehicle, walks backwards, his arms in the air according to the images filmed by an officer’s body camera. “Take two steps to the right! Back up!” an officer shouts at him before quickly handcuffing him. The man later identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, a 58-year-old American, appears calm, his face expressionless, and allows himself to be handcuffed without incident.
“His demeanor was relaxed,” Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said. “I honestly thought he looked like someone who had just left the church picnic and was heading home.” Yet when asked why he was being arrested, the man said yes.
As Ryan Wesley Routh, handed over to the FBI, is placed in police custody, Donald Trump reassures about his condition. “Don’t worry, I am safe and I am fine. No one was hurt. Thank God,” he wrote in messages sent to the press by his campaign team.
An investigation into the shooting has been opened by the Secret Service, the State of Florida and the FBI for “alleged attempted assassination.”
A pro-Ukrainian with changing political views
A media investigation is also underway and the suspect’s identity is quickly revealed. Ryan Wesley Routh, a self-employed construction worker in Hawaii, happens to be pro-Ukrainian. Posts on his X account, which has since been suspended, provide a glimpse of shifting political views, first supporting Donald Trump before turning away and favoring Joe Biden.
In several messages this year, he expressed his wish to see a Republican “ticket” run for president, made up of entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, opponents of Donald Trump in the primaries.
In a book he published in 2023 on the war in Ukraine, he called himself “independent” on the political level: “It really tires me out when people ask me if I am a Democrat or a Republican, I refuse to be put in a category (…)”.
Ryan Wesley Routh also has a lengthy criminal record. He was convicted in North Carolina in 2002 of “possession of a weapon of mass death and destruction” and in 2010 of “multiple counts of possession of stolen property.”
So this is not the first time on Monday, the day after the alleged assassination attempt, that he has set foot on the floor of a courthouse. Presented before a federal judge in a packed Palm Beach courtroom, he appears handcuffed, dressed in a blue prison jumpsuit and smiling as he talks with his lawyer, the BBC reports.
At that first express appearance, he was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with the serial number obscured.
While there is no reference to an attempted assassination attempt against the former president at this stage, he is expected to face further prosecution. His next appearance, on his continued detention, is set for September 23 and his formal indictment a week later.
A renewed figure of martyrdom
The investigation, however, continues. The suspect’s family members and former colleagues are being questioned by the FBI. The Interior Service is trying to determine whether the suspect acted alone, how he knew that Donald Trump would be playing golf that day when it had not been publicly announced, or how he was able to stay in this sensitive location for 12 hours without being spotted. Attorney General Merrick Garland promised Tuesday that law enforcement “will work together to relentlessly determine responsibility” for this event.
The Secret Service, for its part, finds itself once again at the center of questions after the first foiled assassination attempt in July. While Donald Trump praises the action of this elite police force, his Republican allies deplore the fact that its security apparatus has not been raised to the level enjoyed by a sitting president.
President Biden, for his part, is calling for “more help” for this government agency, including “more staff”, and is calling on Congress to release additional resources.
With less than 50 days to go until the election, unsurprisingly, Donald Trump is using this alleged assassination attempt as an electoral argument and a means of raising funds. He points the finger at the “communist left rhetoric” of the Democrats, notably Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, to which the arrested suspect “adhered,” according to him, calling them “the enemy within.”
“Their rhetoric is getting me shot,” the former US president denounced, saying he would “never surrender.” “The bullets are flying, and it’s only going to get worse,” he wrote on X.
Joe Biden, for his part, declared that he “will always condemn political violence” before contacting the Republican candidate by telephone at the end of the afternoon.
Against all odds, they had “a cordial conversation and former President Trump expressed his thanks for the call,” according to White House spokeswoman Emilie Simons. Donald Trump himself, during an appearance on X to promote a new cryptocurrency company, considered that the American president had been “very kind.” A speech contrasting with the incendiary remarks made a few hours earlier.
Kamala Harris also told her rival on Tuesday “that she was happy that he was safe and sound.”
However, the Republican billionaire is unlikely to abandon his martyrdom figure anytime soon. It is a safe bet that he will try to take advantage of it, as he did after his first assassination attempt. And this will happen starting this Tuesday when he goes back on the campaign trail in Michigan, a key state among the most contested in the election.
Related News :