As the FBI continues to investigate the attempted assassination of former President Trump, more details are emerging about the shooting at a Pennsylvania rally that left one dead and two others in critical condition.
The gunfire broke out at a campaign rally in the city of Butler, Pa., Saturday evening, setting off a wave of panic among attendees. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said the upper part of his right ear was pierced in the shooting.
“In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win,” Trump wrote on his social media site.
The FBI has since identified the shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pa. A law enforcement source told The Times that bomb devices were found inside Crooks’ vehicle. The weapon used in the attack was an AR variation purchased legally by his father, the source added.
Although the Butler County coroner’s office declined to name the man killed in the shooting, his family members identified him as Corey Comperatore. His sister posted on Facebook that Comperatore had just turned 50 “and had so much life left to experience.”
In a Sunday press conference Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Comperatore’s wife asked him to share that her husband “dove on his family to protect them.” The governor called the assassination attempt “absolutely unacceptable and tragic,” Shapiro said.
“My message to all Pennsylvanians, my message to all Americans is to be firm in your beliefs, to believe what you believe, to advocate for what you believe and to be engaged in the political and civic process, but to always do so peacefully, to remember that while we may be Democrats or Republicans, above all else, we are Americans,” Shapiro said.
Speaking from the Roosevelt Room at the White House Sunday afternoon, President Biden renewed his call for the highest level of security for former President Trump. He said he would have the Secret Service review security measures for the upcoming Republican National Convention.
Biden said the motive of the shooter is still unknown, but “an assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a nation. It’s not who we are as a nation, it’s not America and we cannot allow this to happen. Unity is the most elusive goal of all, but nothing is [more] important than that right now, unity.”
We must, Biden said, “unite as one nation.”
About a quarter-mile from the 100-acre Butler Farm Show Grounds where the rally took place, scores of Trump 2024 signs dotted the lawns of Whitestown Road, a quiet residential street lined with dozens of houses.
Robert Runyan, 34, who lives on Whitestown near the rally site with his wife and their four children, was sitting five to 10 rows from the podium when the gunshots went off. The people sitting in the center and right rows immediately dropped to the ground, but Runyan initially thought the noises were fireworks.
Then, he said he heard more shots in rapid succession. He noticed elderly people, a man with an oxygen tank and a woman in a wheelchair nearby. He tried to shield them as best as he could and after the gunfire stopped, he told The Times, he started helping them back up.
He noticed Trump stand back up and heard the crowd start cheering for him, but Runyan said he wasn’t celebrating with everyone else. He was more focused on a man in the bleachers who had been injured by the gunfire. Three people nearby were trying to help him out. One woman let out a “blood-curdling” scream, which Runyan said would “stick with him forever.”
“In a few seconds, you grasped that [Trump’s] fine but then you notice the magnitude of what’s going on,” he said. “You’re looking at Secret Service and you’re looking at the reactions of everyone around you.”
Runyan’s wife, Jessica Lynch, 34, didn’t attend the rally because she said she had a “weird intuition” that something might happen. When she dropped her 15-year-old son off at the show grounds at about 11 a.m., she said she told him to duck or run if he heard any gunshots.
“There’s too many Trump haters,” she told The Times. “And I had a bad feeling the place was gonna get shot up.”
Lynch was at home painting when she saw the news of the shooting on TV. She got a text from Runyan saying Trump had been shot. Then his phone went dead. Lynch started panicking and crying in her driveway before getting into her car and driving a quarter-mile away to the rally. She was relieved to see Runyan, uninjured, in his bright yellow shirt.
“You’re not allowed to go anymore,” she told Runyan. “There are so many dynamics that you have to think about. You’re fine physically but what if our son ended up leaving early because he was so hot? What if our 10-year-old son went with him? What if there were shots at the crowd?”
Runyan is still grappling with the trauma of what he witnessed.
Although Runyan wasn’t an ardent Trump supporter like his 10-year-old son, he said he voted for him in the 2016 election because he didn’t want to support the Clintons. This time around, he said he doesn’t plan on voting for either Biden or Trump. He said he’s always been a “standing on the line” type of person and hopes a balance can be found between the left and the right.
Runyan sees the moment Trump got back up and pumped his fist in the air as potentially changing the course of the election for some voters.
“The people who knew what was going on, that was such a strong a moment for them,” he said. “If they were ever on the fence, they’re not anymore.”
Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.