BUTLER, Pa. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump was the target of an obvious assassination attempt Saturday at a rally in Pennsylvania, days before settling for the Republican nomination for a third time. Trump, who said he shot him in the ear, surrounded the Secret Service and ran to his truck while shaking his fist in defiance.
Trump’s crusader said the presumptive Republican nominee was “fine” after the shooting, which it said pierced the top of his right ear.
“I knew immediately that something was wrong, I heard a whistle, gunshots and I immediately felt the bullet tear my skin. There were a lot of hemorrhages,” he wrote on his social network.
Law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that the gunman who opened fire at the rally was a 20-year-old from Pennsylvania. They spoke on condition of anonymity to address major points that have not yet been made public.
At least one player was killed and two spectators were seriously injured, the government said. The Secret Service said it had killed the suspected shooter, who it said had attacked from an elevated position outside the rally site, an agricultural show in Butler, Pennsylvania. and that Trump emerges unscathed.
The FBI said at a news conference Saturday afternoon that it was not in a position to reveal the identity of the shooter and did not yet know the motive for the assassination attempt.
It was the most serious assassination attempt committed against a president or presidential candidate since the assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981. It brought new attention to considerations of political violence in the United States. deeply polarized, less than four months before the presidential elections. And it may simply replace the tenor and security posture of the Republican National Convention, which begins Monday in Milwaukee.
Trump’s crusade said the conference would go ahead as planned.
President Joe Biden, who opposes Trump, reported on the incident and spoke with Trump several hours after the shooting, the White House said.
“There is no position in the United States for this violence,” the president said in a public speech. “It’s crazy. It’s crazy. “
Biden planned to return to Washington early, cutting short a weekend at his beach space in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
Many Republicans blamed Biden and his allies for the violence, arguing that sustained attacks on Trump, seen as a risk to democracy, have created a poisonous environment. In particular, they pointed to a comment Biden made to donors on July 8, saying “it’s time to hit the nail on the head. “
In the coming days, much of the focus will be on the shooter and security breaches. The shooter did not attend the rally and was killed by United States Secret Service agents, according to two officials who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.
Authorities said the shooter was recruited through members of the U. S. Secret Service counterattack team. The heavily armed tactical team moves with the president and major party applicants and is intended to deal with any active risks while other agents concentrate on protecting and evacuating the user to the coverage center.
Law enforcement recovered an AR-style rifle at the scene, according to a third user familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.
An AP investigation of more than a dozen videos and images from the scene of Trump’s rally, as well as satellite photographs of the site, shows that the gunman managed to get eerily close to where the former president was speaking. Social media and geotagging via AP show the framing of a user dressed in gray camouflage, motionless on the roof of an AGR International Inc. building, a production facility just north of the Butler Farm Show grounds where the event took place. Trump rally.
The roof where the user was standing was less than 150 meters from where Trump was speaking, a distance at which a clever sniper could succeed on a human-sized target. For reference, 150 meters is a distance at which U. S. Army recruits can go to the U. S. U. S. You have to hit a human-sized figure to qualify with the M-16 rifle. The AR-15, like the Trump rally gunner, is the semi-automatic civilian edition of the Army’s M-16.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose branch oversees the Secret Service, said officials were committed to the Biden and Trump campaigns and were “taking any and all steps imaginable to ensure their safety and security. “
Trump showed a graph of border crossing numbers when the obvious shooting began shortly after 6:10 p. m. m. Two minutes passed from the moment of the first shot before Trump was placed in a reserve van.
As Trump spoke, a pop was heard and the former president put his right hand in front of his right ear, while other people in the stands seemed surprised.
When the first pop played, Trump said “Oh” and grabbed his ear as two more pops were heard and crouched down. Then more shots were heard.
Someone can be heard saying near the microphone at Trump’s lectern: “Drop down, duck down, duck down, duck down!” while the agents attacked the former president. They crowded on him to protect him with their bodies, as is his educational protocol, while other agents took positions on the level to search for the threat.
Screams could be heard from the crowd of several thousand people. One woman screamed louder than the others. Afterward, voices were heard saying “the shooter has fallen” several times, before someone asked “are we fit to move?” ” and “Are we clear?” Then someone ordered: “Let’s go. “
Trump may be heard on the video saying at least twice, “Let me take my shoes, let me take my shoes,” with a voice saying, “I gave them to you, sir. “
Trump stood up moments later and can be seen bringing his right hand closer to his face. There will be blood on his face. He then raised his fist in the air and appeared to say the word “fight” twice in front of the crowd of his supporters, prompting loud applause and then chants of “USA. ” USA. “
The crowd cheered him on as he stood up and shook his fist.
His caravan left the scene a few moments later. The video shows Trump turning toward the crowd and raising his fist just before being loaded into a vehicle.
“They were all put on their knees or in a prone position, because we all knew, we all learned that you shoot,” said Dave McCormick, the Republican candidate for United States Senate in Pennsylvania, seated to Trump’s right.
Seeing Trump raise his fist, McCormick said, he looked over his shoulder and saw that someone had been hit while sitting in the stage stands.
Eventually, first responders pulled the injured user out of a giant crowd so he could get medical attention, McCormick said.
Journalists covering the demonstration heard five or six gunshots and many ducked to hide under tables. After the first two or three explosions, other people in the crowd were shocked, but did not panic. An AP reporter at the scene reported that the noise at first sounded like firecrackers or probably a car backfiring.
When it became clear that the situation had failed and that Trump would not speak again, participants began to leave the room. A man in an electric wheelchair was trapped in the box when his wheelchair battery failed. Others tried to help him move.
Police temporarily asked the remaining people to leave the scene and Secret Service agents told reporters to “leave now. “This is a real crime scene.
Two firefighters from Steubenville, Ohio, who were at the rally, told the AP they helped others who appeared injured and heard bullets hit the speakers.
“Bullets hit the stands, one hit the speaker tower and then chaos broke out. “We fell to the ground and then the police gathered in the stands,” Takach said.
“The first thing I heard was some cracking noises,” Dave Sullivan said.
Sullivan saw one of the loudspeakers hit and the bullets hit and “hit the bridge. “
He said that once the Secret Service and other administrations converged on Trump, he and Takach helped two other people who had been shot on the stand and cleared a path to pull them aside.
“It’s just an unhappy day for America,” Sullivan said.
“After you heard the gunshots, the hydraulic line gushing everywhere, you might see the hydraulic fluid coming out. And then the perimeter tower started collapsing,” Sullivan said. “Then we heard another shot that you might hear, I knew there was something, they were bullets. They weren’t firecrackers.
The dangers of crusading took on new urgency after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in California in 1968, and back in 1972, when Arthur Bremer shot and seriously wounded George Wallace, who was running as an independent with a rarely debatable crusading program. . compared to Trump’s. This led to increased coverage of the candidates, threats persisted, particularly the endorsement of Jesse Jackson in 1988 and Barack Obama in 2008.
Presidents, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, have even higher degrees of security. Trump is a rarity as a former president and current candidate.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and Ohio Sen. J. D. Vance, the three men on Trump’s short list for vice president, were quick to send out statements expressing fear for the former president, and Rubio shared a symbol taken as Trump. He was escorted out of the level with his fist raised and a blood stain on his face accompanied the words “God, President Trump. “
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said in a statement on X that he had been notified of the situation and that Pennsylvania State Police were present at the site of the rally.
“Violence against a politician or a political leader is surely unacceptable. He has no position in Pennsylvania or in the United States,” he said.