Retired Greensboro police officer Tracy Fulk saw headlines about the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on Sunday but did not pay much attention to it until one of her friends called.
‘Guess who was going to shoot Trump?’ her friend asked.
When she told her it was Ryan Wesley Routh, Fulk was shocked.
‘I said, you have got to be kidding, I remembered the guy,’ she told DailyMail.com, recalling the moment over 20 years ago when she pulled him over for driving without a license.
Fulk remembered Routh well, noting that he had been arrested multiple times for different infractions.
In this handout image released on September 16 by the Martin County Sheriffs Office shows Ryan Wesley Routh following his arrest
Retired Greensboro police officer Tracy Fulk
‘I know he was constantly being arrested for a while,’ she said.
Routh has been charged with more than 100 criminal counts in North Carolina, according to NBC News.
When the news about the assassination attempt broke, many former Greensboro law enforcement officers remembered exactly who he was.
‘Everybody remembers him from back in the day … everybody’s like, “I remember him, I arrested him,“’ Fulk said.
She noted that Routh was on their radar, especially after he was found with explosive devices.
‘We had gotten several barometer reports, or dangerous person notifications just because our bomb team had dealt with him, evidently at some point he had some explosive devices, so we were made aware of him just for safety reasons,’ Fulk said.
Routh was known by the Greensboro law enforcement to be armed and a possible threat.
This image provided by the Guilford County Sheriffs Office shows a Feb. 10, 2010 booking photo of Ryan Wesley Routh. (Guilford County Sheriffs Office via AP)
Ryan Routh is seen in a 2023 post on his LinkedIn page captioned: In DC and Kyiv to provide soldiers for the war effort.
‘I think once they found the explosive device, whatever it was, he was on our radar and always seemed to have guns on him every time we dealt with him,’ she said.
She recalled spotting Routh driving a small pickup truck in 2002 and said she knew that he did not have a valid drivers license so she pulled him over.
‘As I approached him he leaned toward to the center of his seat and opened a duffle bag and in the duffle bag I could see a gun,’ she said.
Fulk backed up, pulled her gun, and ordered him to show his hands, but rather than comply he drove off to his nearby roofing business and ran inside and barricaded himself.
He ultimately surrendered and was taken to jail, where he was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, driving without a valid license and resisting, delaying, and obstructing law enforcement.
The News and Record reported at the time that he was charged with possession of carrying a weapon of mass destruction, referring to a fully automatic machine gun.
Fulk, who is now retired, now works as a realtor in the community.
She recalled that Routh was not angry or violent when she spoke with him at the jail after his arrest.
‘He was very polite with me at the jail, I mean he never was rude or anything,’ she said.
Ryan W. Routh, suspected of attempting to assassinate Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump at his West Palm Beach golf course
Body camp footage of Ryan Wesley Rouths arrest on Sunday after he was fired upon by Secret Service agents
Routh was arrested multiple times in 2001-2002 for various misdemeanors including having his drivers license revoked, a hit and run incident, and resisting officers. He was also charged and convicted in 2010 for possessing stolen goods, according to his record.
Secret Service agents fired at Routh Sunday after he was spotted with an AK style rifle at Trumps golf course.
After he fled the scene, Routh, was arrested by law enforcement heading northbound on I-95 about 40 miles from Trumps golf course.
Routh was charged Monday for possession of a firearm as a convicted felon and having a firearm with an obliterated serial number.