First, there was the assassination attempt of Donald Trump on July 13 as the former president appeared at a Republican campaign rally at Butler Farm Show Grounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, where a 20-year-old with an AR-style rifle sent a salvo of bullets, with one piercing Trump’s right ear.
Now, another potential attempt on the 78-year-old Republican presidential candidate’s life.
“I was on my way home from a meeting in Cedar Creek, when I first learned of the second attempt on President Trump’s life,” Rep. Diane Wheatley says about Sunday’s apparent second assassination attempt. According to published reports, a 58-year-old man was appended after a member of Trump’s U.S. Secret Service detail saw the barrel of a weapon protruding from a fence at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach in Florida, where the ex-president was playing golf between the fifth and sixth holes about 500 yards away.
The agent, we have learned from published reports, fired shots at the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, who fled and was arrested about an hour later along Interstate 95. Authorities found “a scoped rifle, GoPro camera and backpack with ceramic plates,” on the property of the golf course in Florida, CNN reports.
Routh, according to published reports, was charged Monday in a West Palm Beach Federal Court with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number.
“My first reaction was great sorrow and wonder about what in the world has happened to us,” said Wheatley, who represents Cumberland County in District 43. “Politics has always been a rough-and-tumble business for as long as I have been involved. People will do and say things that they would never even consider in any other endeavor, but there used to be at least some things that were considered over the line. Certainly, attempting to kill someone you disagree with politically would fall in that category for any sane person.”
Wheatley cannot fathom the thought of what played out Sunday.
“I had thought that the demagoguery and inciteful rhetoric would at least subside after the first attempt,” Wheatley said. “If anything, it seems to have become even more callous.”
Sen. Tom McInnis shares Wheatley’s sentiments.
“Political violence has no place in America and must not be tolerated by anyone,” said McInnis, 70, the Republican representative for District 21 in the state legislature that serves all of Moore County and parts of Cumberland County. “I pray that any person who feels the need to express themselves regarding a political party or individual should act in a dignified and professional manner. We all have a right to our own opinions, but not at the expense of anyone’s safety, health and welfare.”
Linda Devore of Cumberland County was one of the 74-member N.C. Republican delegates who attended the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, when learning of the failed assassination attempt on Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.
What unfolded Sunday has left her speechless.
“I just have no words,” Devore said Monday.
Devore is a member of the Cumberland County Board of Elections.
What lurks within …
None of us know what lurks in the minds and hearts of others. All we know, when it comes to politics, is what we read in print and see and hear on television news. We’ve learned, however, that Ryan Wesley Routh was concerned deeply about the war in Ukraine, traveled to Kyiv in 2022 and offered advice via Twitter to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on military strategy against Russian forces, according to published reports.
We learned, too, that Routh had become disenchanted with Trump, and law enforcement says he was the man in the foliage by the fence near the sixth green Sunday and spotted by the Secret Service agent. We know, according to published reports, that Routh may have been lying in wait some 12 hours, but he never fired a shot from the AK-47 style rifle found along the golf course fence.
We have learned, as well, that the suspect once lived in Greensboro, and according to published reports, often ran afoul of the law on a myriad of charges, including barricading himself with a weapon in a roofing business more than 20 years ago after eluding a traffic violation.
According to published reports, an eyewitness identified Routh as the man leaving the golf course in a Nissan SUV, and that for whatever the reason, Routh likely was not at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach doing a photo shoot for Sports Illustrated. And that he is a suspect in a heap of trouble.
Epilogue
And that Rep. Diane Wheatley absolutely is right to wonder what has happened to us in this volatile world of our national politics.
“Recently, we have all probably heard talk about the fight for the soul of the nation, with each political faction claiming the higher ground,” Wheatly said. “I worry that if we don’t soon change our hearts and our actions towards one another, there will be no soul to fight for.”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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I have long said we can agree to disagree but that Unity is more valuable than division. We can all agree that we are indeed lucky to have such wonderful and sensible Legislators as Representative Diane Wheatley and Senator Tom McInnis.
Let us all work together to strengthen our great Community and Nation that Many have given their all to maintain. Gail Morfesis