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The man accused of trying to assassinate Donald Trump inspired fear on his street due to his large gun collection, a neighbor has claimed.
Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was arrested on Sunday after being shot at by US Secret Service (USSS) agents at one of the former president's golf courses in Florida. He was stopped in a vehicle after apparently leaving a spot in woods next to Trump’s golf course where he is thought to have been laid up for 12 hours.
A woman who lived next door to Routh in Greensboro, North Carolina told local broadcaster Fox 8 WGHP that many of his neighbors were scared of him.
“I’ve seen the guns myself and all... they had a lot of guns and stuff over there. And yeah, a lot of people were afraid of him back in the day," said the woman, who claimed to have known him for nearly 20 years.
Though the woman described him as unusual, she also said that she would never have imagined him getting involved in a suspected assassination attempt.
“Him trying to shoot Trump – that’s a lot. I would have never guessed, and I would have swore up and down, 'no, that’s not him,'" she said.
"I just can’t believe it. I mean, if I didn’t see it with my own eyes – the pictures and stuff and all – then I wouldn’t be able to believe that."
Law enforcement officials have named Routh as the man spotted aiming a rifle through the bushes at Trump National Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, while the former president played a round of golf just 300 to 500 yards away.
When USSS agents opened fire, he allegedly fled, and was later stopped by police while driving through a neighbouring county.
Routh’s motives are unclear, and he has described his politics as neither Democrat nor Republican. He claims to be a former Trump supporter who later regretted his vote, and has been highly outspoken about the need to defend the independence of Ukraine and Taiwan.
In a self-published book in 2023, he encouraged the Iranian government to assassinate Trump for his decision to trash Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, while lamenting that “no one here in the US seems to have the balls” to take similar steps.
The following May, he moved to Hawaii, which is when his Greensboro next-door neighbour last spoke to him.
“He told me it was the last day he was here and he hugged me goodbye,” the woman told Fox 8 WGHP. She said that he gave her a Hawaiian shirt as a gift and paid her son money to help him move.
“I thought he was just living the life in Hawaii with the girlfriend and all,” she said. “So for him to be assassinating the president, that’s just crazy.”
