Donald Trump was hit in the ear in an apparent assassination attempt by a gunman at a campaign rally on July 13, in a chaotic and shocking incident that will fuel fears of instability ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
The FBI identified the shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old from Pennsylvania’s Bethel Park, according to US media. Crooks was named by the FBI “as the subject involved in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump”.
The 78-year-old former president was rushed off stage with blood smeared across his face after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, while the gunman and a bystander were killed and two spectators critically injured.
The Republican candidate raised a defiant fist to the crowd as he was bundled away to safety and said afterwards “I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.”
Two witnesses at Donald Trump’s election rally in Pennsylvania, where he was attacked, claimed to have seen the shooter, with one recalling how the gunman moved from roof to roof, apparently scouting for a perfect perch to shoot at the former US president.
The FBI on Sunday identified the gunman as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Crooks, armed with an AR-style rifle, was killed by Secret Service personnel. He fired multiple shots at the stage from an “elevated position outside of the rally venue,” the agency said.
The gunman was able to get close enough to shoot and injure Trump is seen as a huge failure of the security agencies tasked with providing cover for him ahead of the election.
The gunman was on a rooftop approximately “200 to 250 yards” from where the former US president was addressing his supporters, US media reported.
According to an attendee named Ben Macer, he was up along the fence line and “saw the guy move from roof to roof”, CBS News reported.
Macer further said he told an officer that the shooter was on the roof, approximately “200 to 250 yards” away from where Trump was addressing his supporters.
“When I turned around to go back to where I was, it was when the gunshots started, and then it was just chaos, and we all came running away, and that was that,” he said. — PTI