A day after Trump assassination attempt, FBI investigates, victims reel, nation wonders

An American flag flutters over an empty fairgrounds filled with leftover tents, chairs, barricades and debris

, Summer Lin, Brittny Mejia and Angie Orellana Hernandez

July 14, 2024 Updated 5:28 PM PT

BUTLER, Pa. — As the FBI works to uncover the motive behind the assassination attempt of former President Trump at a campaign rally, agency officials said Sunday that they believed the shooter — who wounded two others and left one dead — acted alone.

Gunfire broke out at the event Saturday night in Butler, Pa., 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.

The FBI has identified the shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pa. In a Sunday briefing, officials said they had yet to identify “an ideology associated” with Crooks.

Kevin Rojek, the FBI’s Pittsburgh special agent in charge, said the gun used was an AR-style 556 rifle, which law enforcement officials believe was purchased legally by Crooks’ father. Authorities said it’s unclear how the young man gained access to the weapon.

During the search of the shooter’s car, Rojek said, agents found “a suspicious device,” which was inspected by bomb technicians and rendered safe. Officials said they are investigating the shooting as an assassination attempt, and they are also looking at it as a “potential domestic terrorism act.”

Rojek said there are no indications yet that the shooter had mental health issues.

Soon after the shooting, Trump issued a call for unity. Writing on his social media site, Truth Social: “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.”

The Pennsylvania State Police identified the man fatally shot as Corey Comperatore, 50, of Sarver, Pa. They identified the other two victims as David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74, who are listed as stable.

In a Sunday news conference, Gov. Josh Shapiro said Comperatore’s wife asked Shapiro to share that her husband “dove on his family to protect them.” The governor called the assassination attempt “absolutely unacceptable and tragic.”

“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.

President Biden addressed the shooting in a prime-time national address Sunday from the Oval Office, saying, “We are not enemies. ... We can’t, we must not go down” the road of political violence. Biden said political passions can run high, but “we must never descend into violence.”

Earlier Sunday, the president renewed his call for the highest level of security for Trump. The president said he would have the Secret Service review safety measures for the upcoming Republican National Convention.

“An assassination attempt is contrary to everything we stand for as a nation,” Biden said. “It’s not who we are as a nation, it’s not America, and we cannot allow this to happen.”

President Biden speaks at a White House lectern flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris, left, and Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland

We must, Biden said, “unite as one nation.”

About a quarter of a 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 fiancee 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.

Jessica Lynch and fiance Robert Runyan stand in front of a house with a Trump 2024 flag hanging above the porch.

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 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. 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 fiancee, Jessica Lynch, 34, didn’t attend the rally because she said she had a “weird intuition” that something might happen. When she dropped off her 15-year-old son at the show grounds about 11 a.m., she said she told him to duck or run if he heard gunshots.

“There’s too many Trump haters,” she told The Times. “And I had a bad feeling the place was gonna get shot up.”

Security agents in suits surround ex-President Trump as spectators look on from stands draped in American flag colors

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 quiet. Lynch started panicking and crying in her driveway before getting into her car and heading 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 grappling with the trauma of what he witnessed.

Although he wasn’t an ardent Trump supporter like his 10-year-old son, Runyan said he voted for him in the 2016 election because he didn’t want to support Hillary Clinton. 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.”

Joseph Meyn, 51, waited hours at the rally for Trump to speak around 6 p.m. Meyn said he alternated between watching a nearby Jumbotron — which contained a bar graph of rates of illegal immigration over the last several years — and Trump speaking at the podium.

At some point, he told The Times, he heard seven gunshots in quick succession, all in a little over a second. Meyn, who owns an AR-15, said he is familiar with guns and knows what the high-powered weapon sounds like.

“I immediately see vapor trails heading to the podium,” he said.

As Meyn turned to fully look at the podium, he said, he noticed a man get hit in the back of the head by gunfire, “and he’s immediately killed.” When Meyn looked at Trump, who he said had just turned his head to the left, “that’s when I noticed the bullet slice the top portion of his ear.”

“It was pandemonium,” he said. “People were screaming, crying. Everyone around me dropped to the ground.”

Meyn, who is a doctor, rushed to help, making for the stands to the left of him, jumping a steel barrier and encountering State Police troopers and a medic.

“I walked up and said: ‘I’m a surgeon. I can help.’”

“That man’s dead,” said the medic of the person shot in the head.

Meyn said the man’s family appeared to be in the bleachers with him. One woman in her 20s or 30s asked if her loved one was going to be OK.

“Someone said, ‘No he’s dead.’ She immediately burst into hysterical tears, couldn’t breathe. You could physically watch her soul get crushed like it was an empty aluminum can,” Meyn said. “I will go to my grave with that etched in my mind.”

Had Trump not turned his head, Meyn said, “he would be dead. He would be assassinated.”

Meyn said he’s always liked Trump and described him as a “person who can take a more pragmatic approach to problems.” But he added that “in this incredibly polarized political climate,” he was shocked this hadn’t happened earlier.

“The people that participate in our political process in this country, at the end of every election cycle … everyone walks away from the zero-sum political game as if it’s the end of the world; you won everything, or you lost everything,” Meyn said.

“Our country as a society is very sick, and it’s not getting any better,” he said. “We have to have some major changes in our society and our discourse, or this is just going to get worse.”

Matthew Ammann II, 26, drove an hour from Niles, Ohio, to attend the rally with his cousin, his cousin’s girlfriend and his friends. Ammann wore a black Trump 2024 shirt, red shorts and a Make America Great Again hat.

Ammann said he witnessed the moment when Trump raised his fist.

“My favorite part, to be honest, was when after he got shot he sticks his fist in the air and just lets everybody know: ‘This isn’t over. This is just the beginning,’” Ammann said.

“It changed my whole perspective on Trump,” he said. “If I could afford it, I would travel to every Trump rally in the country and fist pump the whole way.”

Goldberg and Lin reported from Butler, Pa. Mejia and Orellana Hernandez reported from Los Angeles.