A local prosecutor says the suspected gunman and at least one attendee are dead after a shooting at Donald Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger said in a phone interview that the suspected gunman was dead. The Secret Service said two spectators were critically injured.
The FBI early Sunday named Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the shooter in the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump. 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.
The shooting is being investigated as an assassination attempt, law enforcement officials say. Two officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. They said the shooter was not an attendee at the rally and was killed by Secret Service agents.
Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick, who was sitting in the front row, told Politico that it appeared someone behind him was shot.
“All the sudden shots started to crack, someone behind me appears to have been shot,” McCormick said. “There’s lots of blood, and then the Secret Service were all over President Trump.”
Trump, as a former president, retains Secret Service protection for life under federal law. As the presumptive Republican nominee who is frequently in the public eye, he received added protective assets. He was showing off a chart of border crossing numbers during his last rally before the Republican National Convention opens Monday when bangs started ringing through the crowd.
As the first pop rang out, Trump said, “Oh,” and grabbed his ear as two more pops could be heard and he crouched down.
Someone can be heard saying near the microphone at Trump’s lectern, “Get down, get down, get down, get down!” as agents tackled the former president.
Trump could later be seen reaching with his right hand toward his face. There appeared to be blood on his face.
In a social media post, Donald Trump said he was “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.”
He wrote on his Truth Social platform that he “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, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
