Former president Donald Trump has confirmed he was shot in the upper ear while he was speaking on stage at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Multiple shots were fired toward the stage by a shooter at Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania about 6.10pm on Saturday (local time), leaving one spectator dead and two critically injured, according to the Secret Service.
Who shot at Donald Trump?
The FBI has this afternoon named Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the subject involved in the assassination attempt.
The agency said the investigation remains active and ongoing.
Speaking at a press conference earlier this afternoon, FBI Deputy Commissioner of Operations Lieutenant Colonel George Bivens said authorities were yet to identify the initial shooter and the motive behind the attack, but would not rule out whether the gunman acted alone.
“I think it’s too early to say that we have one shooter tentatively identified, but we’re not stopping there,” he told reporters.
“We are absolutely not taking for granted that this was a lone wolf attack and so we would be looking at additional information that could point us to anyone else that may have had a hand in this.
“We’re following up on a lot of information. It will be some time until we can conclusively say or answer that question.”
Bivens said their greatest priority was identifying the motive and whether other parties were involved in the attack.
“I think once the shooter is identified anyone that has specific information on that shooter, that would be very helpful also,” he said.
Was the shooter attending Donald Trump’s rally?
Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger said the shooter was outside the rally grounds at the time of the attack, but he didn’t give additional information about where.
“Quite frankly I don’t know how he would have gotten to the location where he was, but he was outside the grounds, and I think that’s something that we’re going to have to figure out — how he got there,” he said.
Multiple shots were fired toward the stage by the shooter the Secret Service said, leaving one spectator dead and two critically injured.
The agency said the shooter fired from “an elevated position outside the rally venue.” Agents “neutralized” the shooter, who is now dead.
The agency said the shooter fired from “an elevated position outside the rally venue.”
Witness Greg Smith told the BBC he saw a man crawling on top of a building just outside the event in Butler County around five minutes into Trump’s speech and alerted police.
“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.”
Smith said he later saw the agents shoot the gunman: “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.”
What kind of weapon did the shooter have?
Law enforcement recovered AR-style rifle at scene of Trump rally shooting, AP source says.
Trump’s message on his Truth Social account explains he was shot by a bullet that pierced the upper part of his right ear.
“I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my 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, so I realized then what was happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!” he wrote.
With Associated Press, CNN
