Now that Ryan Routh, the suspect in the attempted assassination of President Trump, is in custody, the FBI and Florida police will be working hard to uncover his planning and motives.
Patrick Brosnan, a former NYPD detective and security expert, told Fox News Digital that investigators will need to comb through a huge amount of information over the coming weeks, including “cell phones, online shopping, cell phone camera images, bank records, email correspondence, recent search engine queries, dating app activity, identifying possible disposable phones, city street footage, UPS trucks, Amazon trucks, backup cameras, and all cell tower signals within a reasonable distance.”
Investigators will use this information to develop a profile of Routh to answer those questions, said SWAT Commander Gene Petrino, who has worked in law enforcement for nearly 30 years and has a master's degree in security management.
Trump assassin Ryan Routh hid under cover of darkness for 12 hours, court documents say
Ryan W. Routh, the man accused of trying to assassinate former Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a golf course in West Palm Beach, stands in handcuffs after being arrested on a traffic ticket near Palm City, Florida, on Sept. 15, 2024. (Martin County Sheriff's Office/Distributed via Reuters)
1. Did Ryan Wesley Routh act alone?
Petrino said investigators will obtain a warrant and comb through Routh's social media accounts and speak with family members and associates to determine whether anyone else was involved in plotting to kill Routh Sunday afternoon or if anyone had trained him in advance.
“They're going to be looking for possible accomplices or people who knew and said nothing,” Petrino said.
The FBI said at a press conference on Monday that it had no information indicating Routh was traveling with anyone else.
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2. What was Routh's motivation?
Investigators will seek to determine what motivated the 58-year-old man to target the former president, through his associates and social media.
“They're definitely going to be investigating his background and his motives. They're going to be gathering all the videos of him, looking at his social media accounts, talking to his neighbors,” Petrino said. “They're going to be looking at what his motives were or if he has a personal grudge against him.”
Routh had made numerous political posts on X. Before Sunday's assassination attempt, he had called Trump a “clown,” “idiot” and “fool,” and wrote that while he supported Trump in 2016, he had come to believe that decision was a “terrible mistake.” Iran, he wrote, “should feel free to assassinate Trump and me for their error of judgment.”
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Palm Beach County Sheriff's Department officers patrol outside Trump International Golf Club, Monday, Sept. 16, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Mega from Fox News Digital)
He also wrote that he was willing to “volunteer to fight and die” to support Ukrainian forces on the front line.
According to a New York Times report, Routh was a pro-Ukrainian activist who had volunteered in Eastern Europe to rally support for Ukraine's military effort and had also sought out Afghan veterans who had fled the Taliban to fight in the country's war.
“If someone is passionate enough to feel they need to go to another country to defend another country, they may feel the same way about what needs to be done in their own country,” Petrino said.
3. How did Routh obtain his firearms?
Police seized a loaded SKS-style rifle with a scope and an obliterated serial number after Routh was spotted and fled the scene at the Trump International Golf Course. Routh was indicted in federal court on Monday on charges of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
Routh has a criminal history dating back to the 1980s in Guilford County, North Carolina. The charges against him range from writing multiple bad checks to felon in possession of a firearm, possession of a stolen vehicle and multiple other felonies. Possession of weapons of mass destruction In 2002, specifically, the “10-inch[ch] Detonation cord and detonator.”
Body camera footage released on Monday shows Ryan Routh, the suspected assassin of President Trump, being taken into custody on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (Martin County Sheriff's Office)
“Authorities will be looking at how he got hold of the rifle and whether it was used anywhere else,” Petrino said. “He has a previous weapons conviction and normally wouldn't have access to another weapon. If he's a convicted felon, how would he get another weapon?”
4. How did Routh know where to ambush?
According to court documents, Routh arrived outside the Trump International Golf Course under cover of darkness and hid in bushes for nearly 12 hours.
Petrino said authorities need to determine how the suspects knew where Trump was and how they scouted the location to hit the former president.
This courtroom sketch depicts Routh in federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. Routh is charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. (Lothar Speer)
“Finding a place to hide would have required some legwork,” Petrino said. “Could he have done it on a computer with Google Maps? Absolutely. But this seems to have involved some planning and thought. How did he know to go to that location? It's highly unlikely that he would have been in the area, seen the motorcade and said, 'That's the president, I'm going to go get him.'”
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“How did this guy know where Trump was? I would imagine there was some sort of security breach, a channel that they thought was secure was somehow breached or they have someone on the inside feeding them information,” Petrino said.
Fox News Digital's Audrey Conklin contributed to this report.
