Former US president Donald Trump was shot at while he was addressing a campaign rally in Pennsylvania ahead of the US presidential elections. The 78-year-old leader hid behind the podium on stage as several shots rang out at the rally.
The leader, who was seen with blood on his right ear, was quickly swarmed by Secret Service agents who encircled the former president and escorted him off stage. While being whisked off, he raised his fist to the crowd and mouthed “fight, fight”.
In a photo, purportedly captured moments before he was attacked, a bullet can be seen whizzing past his face. The image clicked by New York Times photographer Doug Mills shows a bullet near Trump’s cheek as faced the crowd while delivering his speech.
Photo by New York Times photographer Doug Mills shows bullet flying just behind Trump’s head. pic.twitter.com/0ncIBC0i1v
— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) July 14, 2024
A witness has claimed that he saw the man who fired at Trump on the roof of a building near the event grounds. Talking to the BBC, he said that the shooter was armed with a rifle and had crawled on top of the building. “The guy crawled up the building 50 feet from us. He had a rifle,” he said.
He said that he informed police, Secret Service about a suspicious man on a roof with a rifle. “I’m thinking to myself ‘Why is Trump still speaking, why have they not pulled him off the stage’… the next thing you know, five shots ring out,” he told the BBC.
Taking to Truth Social, a social media company owned by him, the former US president said he 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,” he said.
The attack has united US political leaders on both sides the spectrum with Trump’s rival and US President Joe Biden condemning the attack, saying there was “no place in America for this kind of violence”.
