The shooting at former US President Donald Trump during his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, raised questions about how the Republican presidential candidate is protected on the campaign trail and what caused the apparent security lapses.
While information about the incident is still sparse, one person interviewed by the BBC said he had tried to alert police and the US Secret Service to an apparent sniper climbing onto a nearby roof outside the security perimeter of the rally venue. But to no avail.
“We noticed a guy crawling... up the roof of the building beside us, 50 ft away from us...We’re pointing at the guy crawling up the roof,” he said, describing how he and his friends tried to alert law enforcement to the man’s presence.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk shared the video on X (formally Twitter) and said: “The head of the Secret Service and the leader of this security detail should resign.” In the post, one can listen to the eyewitness explaining how he saw the shooter moments before the shooting took place.
Another eyewitness at Donald Trump’s campaign rally told The Guardian that he saw what was “clearly blood” on the former president as shots rang out during Saturday afternoon’s event.
“He was speaking about immigration. He had a slide on the big screen, the Jumbotron. I was watching him and then I heard some noises,” he said, adding that he did not “have any training that would enable me to recognise gunshots from firecrackers from something else like that”.
“I was hoping that it was a prank, that it was a bad joke,” the witness said, adding that he saw Trump “essentially being tackled to the ground by the Secret Service”.
Two other locals of Butler, who were at the rally when the shooting took place, said they heard at least four gunshots. They told BBC they got on the ground as the Secret Service came through the crowd, shouting for the attendees to get down. They heard a little girl beside them, who was crying that she didn’t want to die and saying “how is this happening to us?”
“We couldn’t believe it was happening,” Warren said.
Describing the chaos, another rally attendee told Reuters, “I heard about four shots and I saw the crowd go down and then Trump ducked also real quick. Then the Secret Service all jumped and protected him as soon as they could. We are talking within a second they were all protecting him.”
Former US President Donald Trump narrowly escaped an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The assailant has been reportedly identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Crooks is said to have fired multiple shots from an elevated position on a manufacturing plant roof, over 130 yards from the stage where Trump was addressing supporters.
In a post on social media, Donald Trump said he was hit by a “bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear” when a gunman opened fire in his rally. “It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, noting that the suspected shooter is dead.
“I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” the former US President wrote.
Authorities, including the FBI and local law enforcement, are investigating the motive behind Crooks’ actions. At a press conference, officials confirmed they are treating the shooting as an attempted assassination.
Officials indicated that it is premature to determine if the assassination attempt was the work of a “lone wolf”.