• 2 months ago
Transcript
00:00Former U.S. President Donald Trump is safe after shots were fired at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida.
00:08And what the FBI says was another assassination attempt.
00:11Officials say Secret Service agents spotted a rifle barrel poking out of the bushes as they were clearing holes on the course ahead of Trump,
00:18then fired on a gunman near the property line, only a few hundred yards from where the former president was playing.
00:25Palm Beach County Sheriff Rick Bradshaw says a witness managed to take pictures of the suspect fleeing in a black Nissan.
00:31So we had that information, our real-time tracks that were put out to the license plate readers.
00:41And we were able to get a hold of that vehicle, an I-95, as it was headed into Barton County.
00:47We got ahold of Barton County Sheriff's Office, alerted them, and they spotted the vehicle and pulled it over.
00:54Bradshaw said officers found an AK-47-style rifle, two backpacks, and a GoPro camera at the scene.
01:01He also said a person was in custody.
01:03It was not clear if or how the suspect knew Trump was playing golf at the time.
01:09CNN, Fox News, and The New York Times identified the suspect as Ryan Wesley Ruth, 58, of Hawaii, citing unnamed law enforcement officials.
01:19Reuters found social media posts that matched the man identified by those outlets on LinkedIn, Facebook, and X.
01:25By Sunday night, Reuters was not able to confirm these were the suspect's accounts, and law enforcement agencies declined to comment.
01:32However, public access to the Facebook and X profiles was removed hours after the shooting.
01:38The three accounts bearing Ruth's name suggest he was an avid supporter of Ukraine in its war against Russia.
01:44In several of the posts, he appeared to be trying to help recruit soldiers for Ukraine's war effort.
01:49Trump sent an email after the incident to supporters seen by Reuters saying that he was safe.
01:55The former president was injured in July by an earlier assassination attempt in Pennsylvania,
02:00raising questions about protection for candidates just months ahead of the November 5th election.
02:05The first shooting of a U.S. president or major party presidential candidate in more than four decades
02:10was a glaring security lapse that forced Kimberly Cheadle to resign as secret service director under bipartisan congressional pressure.

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