The FBI revealed more details surrounding the shooting at a Donald Trump rally in Pennsylvania, confirming the bid was in fact an assassination attempt on the former president in a late night press conference on Saturday.
“Tonight we had what we’re calling an assassination attempt on our former president, Donald Trump,” Kevin Rojek, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Pittsburgh field office, said in a press conference late Saturday.
Trump was shot in the ear just minutes into his appearance. Numerous shots could be heard as Trump reacted, grimacing and ducking for cover. He was rushed off stage, bloodied, by Secret Service agents, but not before he put his fist in the air in a defiant gesture of survival. Trump is “fine,” his spokesperson Steven Cheung told The Daily Beast shortly after the shooting.
The shooter was “neutralized,” the Secret Service had earlier confirmed, after crawling onto a roof outside the rally venue.
Authorities said they were not prepared to publicly identify the shooter, who was not carrying identification, Rojek said, with the agency, “looking at photographs right now, and we’re trying to run his DNA and get biometric confirmation.”
“We are close to that identification, and as soon as we are 100% confident in who that individual is, we will share it with the press,” Rojek added.
Additionally, State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens confirmed police have identified the victims–one attendee who died and two were critically injured–but were also not prepared to release names, Bivens said.
“We do not currently have an identified motive,” Rojek said, adding the FBI had received no threats alluding to the events at the Saturday rally.
When asked if it was a lone wolf attack, Bivens said, “We have one shooter tentatively identified, but we’re not stopping there. We’re following up on a lot of information. It will be sometime before we can conclusively answer that question.” However authorities believe there is no active threat.
Bivens concluded law enforcement was unaware of the shooter’s whereabouts until they began to fire. “That is our assessment at this time,” Bivens said, while adding “all the details of that will come out later investigation.”
Bivens said officials have “a good idea of what the weapon was” but would not go into further detail, claiming it was still under investigation.
“It was a chaotic scene, law enforcement I believe acted heroically, quickly identifying and neutralizing the threat as well as responding to the various victims,” Bivens said.
Witnesses had earlier described seeing the shooter, who was not an attendee of the rally, get into position.
One man, identified only as Greg, told the BBC that he was having a party outside the rally when five-minutes into Trump’s speech, “We noticed a guy bear-crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50 feet away from us.”
Bivens said law enforcement was aware of the witness reports, adding “we’re following up on those.”
Meanwhile, Trump left the Butler area late Saturday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) confirmed on X, adding the former president was “under the protection of US Secret Service and with the assistance of the Pennsylvania State Police.”
Taking to Truth Social, the former president said, “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.”
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