On Saturday, July 13th, Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Dave McCormick, attended a campaign rally in Pennsylvania that was hosted by former President Trump. McCormick was seated in the front row and witnessed a shocking incident in which shots were fired at Trump leading to immediate chaos. He also saw attendees behind Trump getting seriously injured.
According to McCormick in a CNN live broadcast, he was just invited on stage by the former President when he heard a series of gunshots – around seven to eight shots – sounding like “bang, bang, bang.”
“Suddenly, there was chaos. The Secret Service immediately shielded the President, covering him, and the crowd immediately dropped to the ground,” McCormick said.
“I’m not an expert in this field, but it felt like – it sounded like some small-caliber weapon,” McCormick said, “Initially, I thought it was fireworks or something, but with a series of shots following, I believe it was clearly a weapon, a gun.”
He turned back to see, “Clearly someone got hit.” People around tried to offer first aid, and due to the dense crowd, it took medical personnel a few minutes to get into the crowd.
McCormick mentioned that it seemed the injured person in the crowd was a man, and people tried to stop the bleeding by wrapping a shirt around him. Some police officers came in, carrying the man out from the platform.
“You can imagine in such situations, it’s hard to know what will happen next… It seemed like the shots were coming from in front of me – to the left of the President – which explains why people behind me got hit. But I’m not sure if there were also shots from other directions; it was all chaos and confusion at that time,” McCormick explained.
McCormick stated that he and around 15,000 attendees at the rally had passed through metal detectors before entering the event.
Following the incident, Trump took to social media to announce that he was “hit by a bullet at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, with the bullet going through the upper right part of my ear.” The Secret Service shot and killed the gunman.
Federal authorities are investigating the shooting incident, deeming it an assassination attempt.
The Secret Service stated on social media that, following “multiple shots,” one audience member was killed, and two others were seriously injured.