Shooting at Trump rally is being investigated as assassination attempt

BUTLER, Pa. — Former President Donald Trump was the target of an apparent assassination attempt Saturday at a Pennsylvania rally, days before he was to accept the Republican nomination for a third time. A barrage of gunfire set off panic, and a bloodied Trump, who said he was shot in the ear, was surrounded by Secret Service and hurried to his SUV as he pumped his fist in a show of defiance.

Trump’s campaign said the presumptive GOP nominee was doing “fine” after the shooting, which he said pierced the upper part of his right ear.

“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place,” he wrote on his social media site.

The FBI early Sunday identified the shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. The agency said the investigation remains active and ongoing.

The political leanings of Crooks were not immediately clear. Records show Crooks was registered as a Republican voter in Pennsylvania, but federal campaign finance reports also show he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on Jan. 20, 2021, the day President Joe Biden was sworn in to office.

Secret Service agents fatally shot Crooks, who attacked from an elevated position outside the rally venue at a farm show in Butler, Pennsylvania, the agency said.

One attendee was killed and two spectators were critically injured, authorities said. All were identified as men.

The attack was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. It drew new attention to concerns about political violence in a deeply polarized U.S. less than four months before the presidential election. And it could alter the tenor and security posture at the Republican National Convention, which will begin Monday in Milwaukee.

Organizers said the convention would proceed as planned.

Trump flew to New Jersey after visiting a local Pennsylvania hospital, landing shortly after midnight at Newark Liberty International Airport. Video posted by an aide showed the former president deplaning his private jet flanked by U.S. Secret Service agents and heavily armed members of the agency’s counter assault team, an unusually visible show of force by his protective detail.

President Joe Biden, who is running against Trump, was briefed on the incident and spoke to Trump several hours after the shooting, the White House said.

“There’s no place in America for this type of violence,” the president said in public remarks. “It’s sick. It’s sick.”

Biden planned to return to Washington early, cutting short a weekend at his beach home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Many Republicans quickly blamed the violence on Biden and his allies, arguing that sustained attacks on Trump as a threat to democracy have created a toxic environment. They pointed in particular to a comment Biden made to donors on July 8, saying “it’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”

In the coming days, much of the focus will shift to the shooter and security lapses. The shooter was not an attendee at the rally and was killed by U.S. Secret Service agents, according to two officials who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

The officials said the shooter was engaged by members of the U.S. Secret Service counterassault team. The heavily armed tactical team travels everywhere with the president and major party nominees and is meant to confront any active threats while other agents focus on safeguarding and evacuating the person at the center of protection.

Law enforcement recovered an AR-style rifle at the scene, according to a third person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.

An AP analysis of more than a dozen videos and photos from the scene of the Trump rally, as well as satellite imagery of the site, shows the shooter was able to get astonishingly close to the stage where the former president was speaking. A video posted to social media and geolocated by the AP shows the body of a person wearing gray camouflage lying motionless on the roof of a building at AGR International Inc., a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm Show grounds where Trump’s rally was held.

The roof where the person lay was less than 164 yards from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target. For reference, it's a distance at which U.S. Army recruits must hit a scaled human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M-16 rifle. The AR-15, like the shooter at the Trump rally had, is the semi-automatic civilian version of the military M-16.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose department oversees the Secret Service, said officials were engaged with the Biden and Trump campaigns and “taking every possible measure to ensure their safety and security.”

A rally disrupted by gunfire

Trump was showing off a chart of border crossing numbers when the apparent shots began just after 6:10 p.m. It took two minutes from the moment of the first shot for Trump to be placed in a waiting SUV.

As Trump was talking, a popping sound was heard, and the former president put his right hand up to his right ear, as people in the stands behind him appeared to be shocked.

As the first pop rang out, Trump said, “Oh,” and grabbed his ear as two more pops could be heard and he crouched down. More shots were heard then.

Someone could be heard saying near the microphone at Trump’s lectern, “Get down, get down, get down, get down!” as agents tackled the former president. They piled atop him to shield him with their bodies, as is their training protocol, as other agents took up positions on stage to search for the threat.

Screams were heard in the crowd of several thousand people. A woman screamed louder than the rest. Afterward, voices were heard saying “shooter’s down” several times, before someone asked “are we good to move?” and “are we clear?” Then, someone ordered, “Let’s move.”

Trump could be heard on the video saying at least twice, “Let me get my shoes, let me get my shoes,” with another voice heard saying, “I’ve got you sir.”

Trump got to his feet moments later and could be seen reaching with his right hand toward his face. There appeared to be blood on his face. He then pumped his fist in the air and appeared to mouth the word “Fight” twice to his crowd of supporters, prompting loud cheers and then chants of “USA. USA. USA.”

The crowd cheered as he got back up and pumped his fist.

His motorcade left the venue moments later. Video showed Trump turning back to the crowd and raising a fist right before he was put into a vehicle.

Witnesses heard multiple gunshots and ducked for cover

“Everybody went to their knees or their prone position, because we all knew, everyone becoming aware of the fact this was gunfire,” said Dave McCormick, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, who was sitting to Trump's right on stage.

As he saw Trump raise his fist, McCormick said, he looked over his shoulder and noticed someone had been hit while sitting in the bleachers behind the stage.

Eventually, first responders were able to carry the injured person out of a large crowd so he could get medical care, McCormick said.

Reporters covering the rally heard five or six shots ring out and many ducked for cover, hiding under tables. After the first two or three bangs, people in the crowd looked startled, but not panicked. An AP reporter at the scene reported the noise sounded like firecrackers at first or perhaps a car backfiring.

When it was clear the situation had been contained and that Trump would not be returning to speak, attendees started filing out of the venue. One man in an electric wheelchair got stuck on the field when his chair’s battery died. Others tried to help him move.

Police soon told the people remaining to leave the venue and Secret Service agents told reporters to get “out now. This is a live crime scene.”

Two firefighters from nearby Steubenville, Ohio, who were at the rally told the AP that they helped people who appeared injured and heard bullets hitting broadcast speakers.

“The bullets rattled around the grandstand, one hit the speaker tower and then chaos broke. We hit the ground and then the police converged into the grandstands," said Chris Takach.

“The first thing I heard is a couple of cracks,” Dave Sullivan said.

Sullivan said he saw one of the speakers get hit and bullets rattling and, “we hit the deck.”

He said once Secret Service and other authorities converged on Trump, he and Takach assisted two people who may have been shot in the grandstand and cleared a path to get them out of the way.

“Just a sad day for America,” Sullivan said.

“After we heard the shots got fired, then the hydraulic line was spraying all around, you could see the hydraulic fluid coming out of it. And then the speaker tower started to fall down,” Sullivan said. “Then we heard another shot that, you could hear, you knew something was, it was bullets. It wasn’t firecrackers.”

Political violence again shakes America

The perils of campaigning took on a new urgency after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in California in 1968, and again in 1972 when Arthur Bremer shot and seriously hurt George Wallace, who was running as an independent on a campaign platform that has sometimes been compared to Trump’s. That led to increased protection of candidates, even as the threats persisted, notably against Jesse Jackson in 1988 and Barack Obama in 2008.

Presidents, particularly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, have even greater layers of security. Trump is a rarity as both a former president and a current candidate.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, the three men on Trump’s shortlist for vice president, all quickly sent out statements expressing concern for the former president, with Rubio sharing an image taken as Trump was escorted off stage with his fist in the air and a streak of blood on his face along with the words “God protected President Trump.”

As New York Republicans prepared to head to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which kicks off on Monday, Rep. Anthony D'Esposito (R-Island Park), a retired NYPD detective, said he and other delegates will be even more vigilant.

D'Esposito, who represents the 4th Congressional District, said his Nassau district office received a bomb threat on Friday that forced his staff to evacuate for more than an hour as authorities investigated. The bomb threat and the shooting at Trump's rally reflect the divisive political climate in the country, D'Esposito said.

"Security needs to be the priority," D'Esposito told Newsday. "I think [House] members and delegates need to be vigilant, and they need to be smart. There needs to be a plan. I just pray that this calms down and we can just get to the election and move forward."

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) added in a statement: “I am horrified by what happened at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania and relieved that former President Trump is safe. Political violence has no place in our country.”

The Republican National Committee press office did not immediately respond to an inquiry about security at the convention.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said in a statement on X that he had been briefed on the situation and Pennsylvania state police were on hand at the rally site.

“Violence targeted at any political party or political leader is absolutely unacceptable. It has no place in Pennsylvania or the United States,” he said.

With Laura Figueroa Hernandez