Ryan Wesley Routh has a long rap sheet and is reportedly passionate about the war in Ukraine.
Ryan Wesley Routh, the man accused of trying to assassinate former President Donald Trump in Florida, has a long rap sheet with scores of arrests. He is reportedly passionate about the war in Ukraine.
Routh was on the Harvard University campus in 2022 and tried to recruit volunteers to fight in Ukraine. "I'm looking for revolutionaries. I'm looking for people who want to take this whole system down," Routh said in a video taken of him on campus. "I think it's better to serve in fighting the powers."
On Sunday, Routh was arrested after an apparent assassination attempt on Trump. A profile is emerging of a man obsessed with firearms and the war in Ukraine.
Routh has a record of 74 arrests for firearms, explosives, and other offenses.
In 2002, Routh fled police after he was pulled over for driving without a license and barricaded himself in his office for three hours with a machine gun in his hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina.
Tracy Fulk, the arresting officer, spoke with Inside Edition.
"I was like, 'Holy cow,' I mean, I knew who he was immediately," Fulk says.
Routh is twice divorced and has three adult children. He told a federal magistrate at this arraignment Monday that he earns $3,000 a month as a roofer but owns no assets except for a used truck valued at $1,000.
Routh's son, Oran, posted, "He is a loving and caring father. It doesn't sound like the man I know to do anything crazy much less violent."
Routh tried to enlist in the International Brigade of Foreign Fighters in Ukraine but was considered too old. Instead, he became a recruiter.
CBS News senior foreign correspondent Holly Williams was in contact with Routh for more than a year.
"Ryan Routh seemed very sincere but, at times, perhaps somewhat naive. At one point, he even sent me the audio track of a song he had apparently recorded about the carnage caused by the war in Ukraine," Williams tells Inside Edition. "He was describing scenes from the war describing what had been done to Ukraine in the war."
Last year, Routh self-published a memoir titled "Ukraine's Unwinnable War."
At last week's debate between Kamala Harris and Trump, the former president was lukewarm in his support for Ukraine. "I think it's in the U.S. best interest to get this finished and just get it done, negotiate a deal," Trump said.
