Greensboro, North Carolina Ryan Routh, named Sunday as a suspect in what authorities consider an assassination attempt on former President Trump, went from being a successful roofer to a man who thought the Internal Revenue Service was sending police to him, according to a former police officer who had more than 100 interactions with Routh.
Routh's arrest record in Guilford County, North Carolina, dates from the 1980s through 2010 and includes charges ranging from multiple counts of writing bad checks to felon in possession of a firearm, possession of a stolen vehicle, and multiple counts of battery. Possession of weapons of mass destruction In 2002, specifically, the “10-inch[ch] Detonation cord and detonator.”
“Routh's attitude was that he was better than everybody else. He could do whatever he wanted,” Eric Lasseke, a former Greensboro police officer and Air Force veteran, told Fox News Digital. “None of that mattered. He had a very strong sense of entitlement. … He would often slip up about how he got away with it, that he owned a successful business and nobody could do anything to him, that everybody knew him in Greensboro, etc.”
Laseke first met Routh in the late 1990s when the now-retired police officer pulled him over for a traffic violation.
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Ryan Routh barricaded himself inside a roofing company in Greensboro, North Carolina in 2002. (Fox News Digital)
“I would see him in his company truck all the time,” said Laseke, who said he saw Routh at least once a day because the suspect lived and worked within Laseke's patrol area.
“He would drive by and smile. … We became on a first-name basis.”
“It was not uncommon for him to be charged multiple times a week, and he did it brazenly,” Rathke said of Routh's blatant and repeated use of a vehicle with an expired license and registration. “He never tried to hide it.”
But to Lasseke it was clear Routh had been using drugs for years and his appearance spoke volumes, as he had lost weight and become more “delusional”.
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Ryan Routh's latest arrest photo from 2010. (Guilford County Sheriff's Office)
“You could see him change over the years,” Laseke said, noting that Routh's charges over time escalated from minor traffic violations to hit-and-run, possession of a stolen vehicle, possession of stolen property and finally weapons of mass destruction charges. In many of the cases in which Routh faced multiple charges in a single incident, Laseke said, his defense lobbied the court to dismiss the charges to reduce the number of cases, especially because the defendant was not “particularly dangerous” and the crimes did not result in physical injury.
“He liked to nag and play the victim.”
Routh barricaded himself in his shop, then located on Lee Street, with a semi-automatic rifle in December 2002. After he was pulled over in his vehicle, the incident lasted approximately three hours, but Routh turned himself in and was arrested without incident. The Greensboro News & Record reported at the time.
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“Negotiators came, special teams were mobilized and after a few hours of negotiations, he surrendered,” Rasheke said, recalling the barricade incident.
Neighbors said Rouse moved to Hawaii several years ago, but remnants of his Greensboro roofing company, United Roofing, remain on Husband Street in what is believed to be his newest offices. (Fox News Digital)
“His blatant, above-the-law mentality, the fact that he felt he could do anything, the fact that the city was coming after him for his problems, the police were always after him, the fact that drugs were warping his mind, the fact that he locked himself away in a store — his name should have set off alarm bells,” the former officer explained.
“The issues he was barricading himself in within the company… should have rang alarm bells over his name…”
The remains of Rouse's Greensboro roofing company, United Roofing, still stand in a vacant lot on Husband Street, but the actual business where he barricaded himself 20 years ago was on what was formerly Lee Street. People who knew him say he emigrated to Hawaii many years ago.
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A panoramic view of the home that Ryan Routh reportedly once lived in in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. Routh was arrested in West Palm Beach on Sunday on suspicion of plotting to assassinate former President Donald Trump. (Image direct from Fox News Digital)
Timothy Pruitt, branch manager of the local Beacon Roofing Supply Co., said he had numerous interactions with Routh in the late 1990s and early 2000s when his business was taking off.
“I guarantee that if he hadn't gone astray, he would be a billionaire by now.”
According to Pruitt, Rouse “had 90 people under him at one time.”
Ryan Routh, the suspect in an attempted assassination attempt on President Trump, was seen being taken into custody on Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024, in body camera footage released on Monday. (Martin County Sheriff's Office)
Their interactions were normal. Pruitt described the former Greensboro resident as a “nice guy” when he knew him. Pruitt eventually learned from Routh's daughter that Routh likely moved from Greensboro to Arizona and possibly Alaska before moving to Hawaii, where he now lives.
Pruitt said he looked up Routh on Facebook about seven or eight months ago and found that he frequently posted about politics and the Russia-Ukraine war. He considered messaging Routh at the time but decided against it. Then on Sunday, Pruitt said he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw Routh's photo being shown on television in connection with the alleged assassination attempt on President Trump.
“I said, 'Oh my goodness, that's crazy,'” Pruitt recalled.
FBI agents carry boxes of evidence around the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Monday, Sept. 16, 2024. Ryan Routh was arrested earlier this week on suspicion of plotting to assassinate former President Donald Trump by hiding in bushes along the golf course. (via Mega, Fox News Digital)
Daniel Redford, president of the Charlotte Fraternal Order of Police, told Fox News Digital that Routh is “probably one of many with a similar criminal history,” but that what's most concerning is the fact that Redford was able to access a firearm despite being a repeat felon.
“If he's a convicted felon, how did he have a gun in the first place?”
“Obviously, from a police perspective, if someone has a lengthy criminal history, that's a red flag from a safety perspective,” Redford said, “but there are plenty of people with violent pasts who have turned their lives around. You have to be vigilant.”
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Redford said he believes “the penalties for felons possessing weapons need to be tougher.”
Ryan Wesley Routh attends a rally in central Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 30, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky) (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Redford said he wasn't at all surprised by copycat assassination suspects after the first assassination attempt at the former president's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July.
“We're in a very volatile political climate right now. … I don't mean to be insensitive … but it's just letting some crazy people out,” Redfrod said. “Both sides are guilty of inciting some kind of violence and aggression. People who are doing it for the thrill, people who are doing it for attention. I don't understand what's going on in people's heads.”
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Criminal defense lawyer Brett Rosen similarly told Fox News Digital that he “doesn't believe Routh's lengthy criminal history should have alarmed police.”
“The United States is home to over 300 million people, and there is no indication or information that he has threatened to harm President Trump in the past or recently,” Rosen said in a statement. “If this is true, the real red flag is that Mr. Routh was on the golf course for approximately 12 hours. It is unlikely that the Secret Service or police would have pre-searched the course before he played, and if they had, they would likely have found Mr. Routh long before the Secret Service opened fire on him.”
Rosen added that he wouldn't be surprised if authorities charge Routh with attempted murder in the near future if there is enough evidence.
