A “loving and caring” father, an “honest and hard-working” man. This was the description given by Oran Routh, son of Ryan Wesley Routh, moments after his father was arrested on suspicion of an alleged attempt to assassinate Donald Trump when the Republican candidate was playing golf in West Palm Beach, Florida. Although they have recently become more distant, due to a “disagreement” that he avoids talking about, the son defended that his father is not a violent person and said that he did not believe that he was targeting the former American president.

“This is crazy. I know my father and I love him.“But that doesn’t look like him at all,” Oran Routh said after being contacted by the Daily Mail on Sunday. It was then that he became aware of the suspicions that fell on his father, who thought he was in Hawaii, where he has lived since 2018, instead of Florida. The man was charged on Monday with illegal possession of a weapon and erasing the serial number.

“He’s a hard worker and a great father. He’s a nice, friendly man who has worked all his life,” she said, adding that she was not aware that her father owned a gun.

Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, spent most of his life in North Carolina before moving to Kaaawa on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. In 2018, he founded a construction company, Camp Box Honolulu, which builds sheds and affordable tiny homes for the homeless community. He graduated in 1998 from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and describes himself on social media as an “energetic” and “tireless” personwho is “constantly focused on contributing as much as possible to the community.”

FBI investigates what “appears to be (another) assassination attempt” and Biden orders increased protection for Donald Trump

He was a Trump supporter, but he was “very disappointed”

Ryan Wesley Routh voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential electionhaving “helped” the Republican win the race for the White House. However, four years later, he withdrew that support and expressed disappointment: “I and the world hoped that President Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we were all very disappointed and it seems that he is getting worse and deteriorating,” he wrote on his account on the social network X, suspended since then, in June 2020. “I will be happy when he is gone,” he added, according to CBS News.

At the momentAccording to the son’s statements, the suspect He doesn’t like Trumpas “any reasonable person.” The changes in his view of the political landscape were immediately visible when he registered as an unaffiliated voter in March of this year and cast his ballot in the Democratic primary in North Carolina for Joe Biden (since replaced by Kamala Harris) to be the party’s candidate for the US presidential election. He also donated more than $100 to ActBlue, a non-profit organization that collects donations for the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, Ryan Wesley Routh called on Republicans Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy not to give up trying to be the party’s choice for the White House race. “You can’t give up. Why? You have to stay in the race until the end. You have to fight. You have to keep giving speeches and keep pushing until Election Day, regardless of the results. Don’t give up. Join Nikki Haley [Haley] and continues to work,” he wrote, according to the New York Post, in a message addressed to Ramaswamy. The appeals were in vain, as Trump was chosen as the Republican Party candidate.

Criticism grew louder in April after the party representatives became known. In a post identifying Biden’s presidential narrative, Ryan Wesley Routh said the US president’s election campaign should be titled “KADAF: Keep America Democratic and Free.” [“Manter a América democrática e livre”, em português]”, while Trump’s should be called “MASS…Make Americans Slaves Again” [“Tornar os americanos novamente escravos”]”Democracy is at the ballot box and we cannot lose,” the suspect warned, echoing a slogan used by Kamala Harris, who has said she is fighting for American democracy.

On social media, in accounts suspended since Sunday, Routh had commented on Trump’s first assassination attempt, on July 13 at a rally in Pennsylvania, to claim that Biden and Kamala should visit the “wounded in the hospital” and “attend the funeral of the slain firefighter.” “Trump will never do anything for them”said.

On Sunday, Ryan Wesley Routh carried out what the FBI is investigating as a second assassination attempt against Trump. Armed and hiding in some bushes, just metres from where the former US president was playing golf, he was discovered by members of the Secret Service. He fled in a black Nissan, but was found by the authorities and arrested. Behind him, next to the bushes, he left the gun, a telescopic sight, two backpacks with tiles (to increase the bulletproof vest) and a GoPro camera.

Authorities told local television WPTV that the suspect was calm and He showed no emotion, he did not even question the arrest..

The son only talks about “traffic fines”, but the problems with justice are bigger (and bigger)

The son said he was only aware of some of his father’s “traffic tickets,” but Ryan Wesley Routh’s first problems with the American justice system date back to the 1990s. In 1998, CNN writes, the suspect was charged by the US government with issuing uncovered checks, but the case was closed. Four years later, he was back in the crosshairs of the courts: in April, he pleaded guilty to possession of a weapon of mass destruction. However, no further details of the charge have been made public.

In December 2002, he barricaded himself inside a store with a gun in his possession for three hours after being detained during a police raid. He was arrested and, according to The Washington Post, pleaded guilty to driving without a license and registration, resisting arrest and possession of a concealed firearm. In this case, the charge of possession of a weapon of mass destruction was eventually dismissed.

In all, Ryan Wesley Routh will have eight arrests on his record for “lesser” offenses. The troubles with the law, which began in the late 1990s, are in stark contrast to those of the early 1990s. At the time, aged 25, he made headlines in the News & Record for helping protect a woman from an alleged rapist, was dubbed a “super citizen” and awarded a “law enforcement Oscar” by the International Union of Police Associations. “The fight against crime is worth it” was the title of the article.

Unconditional support for Ukraine: “I will die for you”

Ryan Wesley Routh has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since the Russian invasion began more than two years ago. In the weeks since the conflict began, the suspect showed his willingness to “volunteer, fight and die” for the Ukrainians. “I am going from Hawaii to Ukraine to fight for their children and their families and for democracy. I will go and die for you.”he wrote on social network X in 2022. However, not everything went according to plan.

“My initial goal was to come and fight, but I am 56 years old, so I was initially told that I had no military experience and that I was not the ideal candidate. They told me: ‘Not at this time.’ Plan B was to come to kyiv and encourage more people to come here,” he said in an interview with Romanian newspaper Newsweek, available online, in which he appears wearing a T-shirt imitating the American flag.

During the conversation, which lasted just over 10 minutes, Ryan Wesley Routh had no doubt that, unlike other conflicts, which he described as “grey”, the one in Ukraine was “definitely black and white”. It was “good versus evil”, he said, adding that it was important for human beings to “work together” and calling on them to support the Ukrainian army.

In order to help the Ukrainian military and fund the suspect’s stay in Ukraine, his fiancée, Kathleen Shaffe, created a GoFundMe page. Ryan Wesley Routh was described as a man who “put his life on hold and traveled to kyiv in April.” [de 2022] to support the people of Ukraine.” In the Ukrainian capital, he was expected to stay “at least 90 days” in a “hostel with a military unit.” $1,865 was raised out of a total of $2,500 intended to pay for tactical equipment, accommodation or flags for the volunteers.

Less than a year later, in 2023, according to The Washington Post, Routh will have written a book, complete with photographs of beheadings, dead children and corpses, about Ukraine’s “unwinnable war” and the “fatal flaw of democracy.” In one particular chapter, focusing on Iran, the suspect wrote that he has to “take some of the blame” for electing a “foolish” president, in what is widely seen as a reference to Donald Trump. “You are free to murder Trump, as well as me, for this error in judgment,” he told readers.

The war in Ukraine was one of the themes that marked the presidential debate between Trump and Kamala Harris, in which the Republican candidate limited himself to saying that he wanted the conflict to “end”, avoiding stating that he wanted a victory for the country led by Volodymyr Zelensky. Days later, Oran Routh, son of Ryan Wesley Routh, criticized the former US president for “sitting behind his desk, doing nothing”. “My father went there and saw people fighting and dying,” he recalled.

Asked by The Guardian what he would say to his father if he spoke to him in the meantime (and after his arrest), Oran Routh replied: “I know the speech isn’t working, but we have to stick to it.”

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