A longtime neighbor of Ryan Wesley Routh, the North Carolina Trump shooter, acknowledged he was “a little odd” and “feared by a lot of people.”
“I knew he was a little odd,” said an anonymous neighbor who claimed to have known Routh for nearly 20 years while living in Greensboro. Fox 8 He added on Sunday: “He's going to be away for a long time.”
But the woman remains astonished that ardent Democrats are targeting the former president.
“Trying to shoot Trump? That's huge. I never would have expected it and I would have sworn multiple times that it wasn't him,” said a stunned former neighbour of Mr Routh.
“I just can't believe it. I don't think I'd believe it unless I saw it with my own eyes, unless I saw pictures or anything like that.”
She claimed she saw Routh with “a lot of guns” and that his actions instilled fear in his neighbors while he lived in the Tar Heel State.
“I saw the gun myself, there were a lot of guns and stuff there and a lot of people were afraid of him at the time,” she told the outlet.
Here's what we know about the assassination attempt on President Trump in Florida.
The stunned neighbor said he last spoke to Rouse before he moved to Hawaii in May.
She maintained that there was nothing unusual about the alleged assassin when he left North Carolina.
“He said it was his last day here and gave me a goodbye hug – a real hug,” she told the outlet.
Routh also said he gave her a shirt from Hawaii and hired her son to help her move.
“We thought he was just living it up in Hawaii with his girlfriend,” the former neighbor said.
“It's insane that he would assassinate the president.”
According to Rouse's LinkedIn page, he attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University but moved to Hawaii around 2018.
The 58-year-old would-be assassin had a lengthy criminal record in North Carolina, posted frequently about politics and donated exclusively to Democratic candidates and causes dating back to 2019.
According to the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections, a person with the same full name and birth date as Routh faced more than 10 criminal charges in 2001 and 2002, including carrying a concealed weapon and hit-and-run.
Records show the suspect also committed a particularly frightening felony in April 2002: “possession of a weapon of mass destruction.”
On Sunday, Routh was spotted by Secret Service agents carrying a scoped AK-47 rifle near the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.
He apparently set up a GoPro camera on a fence to record the shooting and set up a makeshift sniper nest in a hedge at the edge of the golf course, waiting for Trump to show up.
Secret Service agents fired shots at Routh, who fled the scene and was arrested a short time later on Interstate 95 by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.
Palm Beach County Sheriff Rick Bradshaw said the suspect hid behind a chain link fence about 300 to 500 yards away from Trump as he teed off on the fifth hole around 2 p.m., “which isn't that far with a rifle and a scope.”
The suspect's motive is not yet known.
