Suspect in Trump apparent assassination attempt was subject of internal police reports in North Carolina

 A former police sergeant in Greensboro, North Carolina, said Ryan Wesley Routh, the suspect in the apparent assassination attempt of Donald Trump, had been well known to her department. 

In an interview with CNN, Tracy Fulk, who said she retired in 2017, recalled receiving “several alerts” years earlier in the form of internal law enforcement reports related to Routh. “They would send out alerts saying, ‘Hey this person might be dangerous,’ and we had gotten several reports on Ryan Routh so I knew who he was,” Fulk said.  

Fulk recalled a 2002 incident in which she stopped Routh because she saw him driving but knew his license had been revoked. Fulk said that as she approached his vehicle, Routh opened a duffle bag containing a firearm, prompting her to draw her weapon.  

He then fled the scene and barricaded himself in his nearby business, which led to a stand-off with a police special-response team, Fulk said. He was later arrested. 

Court records show that in 2002 Routh was charged with and later pleaded guilty to felony possession of a weapon of mass destruction, among other charges including resisting an officer, carrying a concealed weapon, and ID card fraud. Fulk is listed on a court record as a charging officer.

“He never was angry or yelling or, you know, a lot of the things you’ll see when somebody runs from the police, he never exhibited those behaviors,” Fulk said of Routh. “He was very cooperative. He just didn’t really talk about the incident.”

The barricade incident was previously described in a 2002 article in the Greensboro News & Record.