Hawaii
Alleged Trump Gunman Was My Hawaii Pickleball Partner
Before Ryan Wesley Routh allegedly became the second man to try and kill Donald Trump in as many months, he was something else entirely: A fiend on the pickleball court.
“He was a reasonably good player. He played really hard,” Bryant Schultz told The Daily Beast in a phone interview. “He was the only one out at the courts who would dive for the ball. Most pickleball players do not dive to make a shot.”
Schultz, 62, of Kaneohe, Oahu, played frequently with Routh, 58, over a period of several years as part of a loose coalition of residents who showed up at Swanzy Beach Park three mornings a week to get their pickleball on.
Both on and off the court, Routh was “always personable and good-natured,” Schultz said, as well as chatty, on friendly terms with many of the park’s regulars. Hard on himself when he made mistakes, he never chastised his partners. “Except for his own errors, he was the most mild-mannered player out there.”
Routh first appeared at the park after the worst of the pandemic had passed, Schultz recalled. “He never appeared to have a bunch of money,” he said. “He was often borrowing paddles. For quite a while, he played with a really chewed-up wooden paddle—because of his dive, you know.”
During a federal court appearance on Monday, Routh was charged with two firearm possession counts. He told the court that he had “zero funds” in savings and had no assets beyond two trucks in Hawaii, according to CNN.
It wasn’t totally clear to his teammates what Routh did for a living. Schultz heard that he “worked on building tiny houses” and would do odd-job repairs around the community, including on a local pier. “He wasn’t paid or contracted,” as far as Schultz knew, he said. “He just went out and made the surface safe for people to walk on.”
On his LinkedIn page, which remained live on Monday, Routh advertised his work with a company called Camp Box Honolulu, which he wrote builds storage units and “very simple housing structures for the less fortunate.” In 2019, a year after Routh moved to Oahu, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported that he’d pledged to build tiny homes for Kalaeloa’s homeless community.
One thing Routh didn’t appear to be—at least on the pickleball court—was political.
“I can’t recall him ever talking politics,” Schultz said. He’d had no idea Routh had self-published a 291-page book last year in which he called for Trump’s assassination, criticizing the former president for his 2018 withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. (Authorities have not yet laid out a possible motive in Sunday’s assassination attempt.)
In a section apparently directed at Iran’s government, Routh wrote, “You are free to assassinate Trump as well as me for that error in judgment and the dismantling of the deal,” according to The Wall Street Journal. “No one here in the US seems to have the balls to put natural selection to work or even unnatural selection.”
Routh has a scattered political history tracing back to his time in his native North Carolina, where he registered as an “unaffiliated” voter in 2012. In his book, he groused that he was “so tired of people asking me if I am a Democrat or Republican as I refuse to be put in a category and I must always answer independent.”
On social media, he had professed support for Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, President Joe Biden, and Trump, whom he disavowed in mid-2020.
“I and the world hoped that president Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we all were greatly disappointment and it seems you are getting worse and devolving…” he tweeted that June. “I will be glad when you gone.”
Schultz and his fellow picklers were aware, however, that Routh left Hawaii for Ukraine shortly after the Russian invasion, intent on fighting for Kyiv.
With no military experience and a lengthy criminal record, however, Routh was rebuffed by the Ukrainian defense ministry, he told Newsweek Romania in an article recently unearthed by CBS News.
“My initial goal was to come fight… but I’m 56, so initially they were like, I have no military experience, so they were like, you’re not an ideal candidate,” he told the magazine. “So they said, not right this minute. So plan B was to come here to Kyiv and promote getting more people here.”
Routh spent some time in the city trying to act as an informal recruiter for Ukraine’s International Legion, and spoke to both The New York Times and Semafor last year about his efforts. But several foreign soldiers involved with the legion told Slate on Sunday night that Routh “was not associated with them, recruited nobody to the cause, and did little during his time in Ukraine aside from garner publicity for himself.”
In a statement to NBC News, a spokesperson for the legion said, “We would like to clarify that Ryan Wesley Routh has never been part of, associated with, or linked to the International Legion in any capacity. Any claims or suggestions indicating otherwise are entirely inaccurate.”
After failing in his recruitment efforts, Routh eventually made his way back to Hawaii, where he took up pickleball again. The last time Schultz saw him was around four or five weeks before the assassination attempt, he said. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary; it was just another day on the court.
Hawaii
Tourist accused of hurling rock at endangered Hawaii monk seal’s head is arrested by federal agents
A tourist who drew widespread condemnation in Hawaii after a witness recorded him chucking a coconut-sized rock at “Lani,” a beloved, endangered Hawaiian monk seal off a Maui beach, was arrested Wednesday by federal agents.
Igor Mykhaylovych Lytvynchuk, 38, of Covington, Washington, is charged with harassing a protected animal, the U.S. attorney’s office in Honolulu said, adding that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration special agents arrested him near Seattle. He was scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Thursday.
The court docket didn’t list an attorney, and a person who answered the phone at a number associated with Lytvynchuk declined to comment.
A state Department of Land and Natural Resources officer last week investigated a report of Hawaiian monk seal harassment in Lahaina, the community that was largely destroyed by a deadly wildfire in 2023. A witness showed the officer video of the seal swimming in shallow water while a man watched from shore.
“In the cellphone video, the man can be seen holding a large rock with one hand, aiming, and throwing it directly at the monk seal,” prosecutors said in a criminal complaint. The rock narrowly missed the seal’s head, but caused the “animal to abruptly alter its behavior,” the complaint said.
When a witness confronted the man, he said “he did not care and was ‘rich’ enough to pay any fines,” the complaint said.
Maui resident Kaylee Schnitzer, 18, told HawaiiNewsNow she witnessed the incident while taking photos nearby.
“What he was picking up was like a rock the size of a coconut,” Schnitzer said. “It wasn’t no small rock. It was the size of a coconut. And he threw it right, directly aiming towards the monk seal’s head.”
Maui Mayor Richard Bissen said the charges send a clear message that cruelty toward protected wildlife won’t be tolerated. Lani’s return after the wildfires brought a sense of healing and hope during a difficult time, he said.
“Lani is a reminder that humanity and the instinct to protect what is vulnerable are still values people can unite around,” Bissen said in an emailed statement.
The mayor said he called the U.S. attorney in Honolulu to advocate for prosecution.
Lytvynchuk is charged with harassing and attempting to harass an endangered Hawaiian monk seal.
Hawaiian monk seals are a critically endangered species. Only 1,600 remain in the wild.
“The unique and precious wildlife of the Hawaiian Islands are renowned symbols of Hawaii’s special place in the world and its incredible biodiversity,” U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson said in a statement. “We are committed to protecting our vulnerable wild species, in particular, endangered Hawaiian monk seals.”
If convicted, Lytvynchuk, faces up to one year in prison for each charge. He also faces a fine of up to $50,000 under the Endangered Species Act and a fine of up to $20,000 under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.
In 2016, a man was seen on video appearing to beat a pregnant Hawaiian monk seal in shallow water.
HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK (HawaiiNewsNow) – The United States Geological Survey Volcanoes said episode 47 of lava fountaining at the summit of Kilauea is expected to begin on Wednesday or Thursday.
USGS said that with the eruption likely imminent, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory raised the alert level from advisory to watch and the aviation color code from yellow to orange.
All activity remains confined to Halemaʻumaʻu crater in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
Click here to check the alerts and conditions before heading to the park.
Copyright 2026 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved.
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