An eyewitness has recounted to the BBC the moments leading up to the shooting at a Donald Trump rally in Butler County, Pennsylvania, where a gunman opened fire on the former president. Greg Smith, who was outside the event on Friday evening, said he saw a man with a rifle on a nearby rooftop just minutes before shots were fired.
Smith described seeing the gunman crawl onto a building just outside the rally and alerted the police. “I’m thinking to myself ‘Why is Trump still speaking, why have they not pulled him off the stage’… the next thing you know, five shots ring out,” Smith said. Trump was immediately surrounded by Secret Service agents and escorted away. He was seen with blood on his face and later reported that a bullet had pierced his ear.
The gunman was shot dead by Secret Service agents, officials confirmed. Smith, who saw the incident unfold, said he observed the agents taking down the shooter. “They crawled up on the roof, they had their guns pointed at him, made sure he was dead. He was dead, and that was it – it was over.”
Smith, who was listening from outside the rally, said he saw the gunman about five minutes into Trump’s speech. “We noticed the guy bear-crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50ft away,” he said. “He had a rifle, we could clearly see a rifle. We’re pointing at him, the police are down there running around on the ground, we’re like ‘Hey man, there’s a guy on the roof with a rifle’… and the police did not know what was going on.”
Despite Smith’s efforts to alert the authorities, he believed they couldn’t see the gunman due to the slope of the roof. “Why is there not Secret Service on all of these roofs here?” he questioned. “This is not a big place. [It’s a] security failure, 100% security failure.”
Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman, stated that agents had “neutralized the shooter” and “quickly responded with protective measures.” The incident is being investigated as an attempted assassination. The Secret Service also reported that a crowd member was killed and two others were critically injured.
Smith, whose child was with him during the shooting, described the emotional aftermath. “There were a lot of kids up there with us who were terrified, they’re still terrified,” he said.
Another witness, Jason, who was inside the event, recounted the chaos following the gunshots. “We see the Secret Service jump on Trump to protect him; everyone on the ground dropped down very quickly,” he said. Despite being injured, Trump stood up and raised his fist in the air. “He was a little bloody, his ear was bleeding. He stood up and he was alive and breathing.”
An emergency department doctor at the rally told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, that he treated a crowd member for a gunshot wound to the head. “I heard the shots, I thought it was firecrackers to begin with,” he said. “Someone over there was screaming ‘He’s been shot, he’s been shot’. The guy had spun around [and was] jammed between the benches. There was a lot of blood.”
Billionaire Elon Musk also weighed in on the incident, retweeting a video and calling for the resignation of the head of the Secret Service and the leader of the security detail.
The head of the Secret Service and the leader of this security detail should resign https://t.co/ihlEC5NP1w
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 14, 2024