Suspect Never Took a Shot at Trump but Hid Undetected for 12 Hours

The man arrested after pointing a rifle through a fence ringing former President Donald J. Trump’s golf course in Florida on Sunday never got off a shot, but appears to have remained undetected for nearly 12 hours before being spotted by a Secret Service agent who drove him off with a volley of gunfire, officials said on Monday.

The man, Ryan W. Routh, 58, a building contractor with an extensive criminal history, never had the former president in his line of sight but was able to hide in the bushes just outside the fence on the edge of the course until Mr. Trump was only hundreds of yards away.

Mr. Routh did not fire at “our agents” before they fired at him, Ronald Rowe Jr., the acting Secret Service director, said at a news conference in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Mr. Routh wore a blue inmate jumpsuit at his initial appearance in a federal courtroom in Florida on Monday. He faces two felony gun charges that allow the authorities to keep him in custody while they continue their investigation into what the F.B.I. has called an assassination attempt.

The F.B.I.’s top agent in Miami, Jeffrey B. Veltri, speaking to reporters, said the bureau had no information that the suspect was working with anybody else. Agents in Hawaii and North Carolina — two states where the suspect lived — had fanned out to conduct interviews as part of a broad investigation into his travels, how he had acquired the rifle and what his motivations had been.

Among the unanswered questions is how Mr. Routh knew Mr. Trump would be on the course. While Mr. Trump frequently plays golf at his properties, his Sunday outing was not a publicly announced appearance, unlike the rally in July in Butler, Pa., where a gunman got off multiple shots, leaving Mr. Trump slightly wounded, one rally attendee dead and two others wounded.