...
By Flynn Nicholls
US News Reporter
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
A video that appears to show rally attendees desperately shouting after spotting a gunman on the roof of a building moments before he opened fire on former President Donald Trump has gone viral.
An adult male was killed and two others were critically injured during the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to the Secret Service, who shot and killed the shooter. The shooter has been identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.
The video, posted to X, formerly Twitter, shows several attendees yelling, "He's got a gun," and one saying, "He's on the roof," before gunshots ring out and the person filming ducks for cover.
Read More on News
The footage was shared by user @CollinRugg, the co-owner of news site Trending Politics, and has amassed over 1.9 million views since it was posted late Saturday night.
Newsweek could not immediately verify the veracity of the video.
Rugg wrote in the post that the people in the video were yelling for law enforcement to intervene.
"How the hell did rally attendees see the suspect before Secret Service and police?" he wrote. '"He's got a gun! He's got a gun!' they shouted before the shots rang out."
Greg Smith, an eyewitness to the events at the rally, told the BBC that he spotted a man with a rifle "bear-crawling" onto a nearby rooftop minutes before the gunshots were fired.
"We noticed the guy bear-crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50 feet away from us," Smith recounted. "He had a rifle; we could clearly see a rifle." What followed, according to the witness, was a frantic attempt to alert authorities to the imminent danger.
...
"Why is there not Secret Service on all of these roofs here? This is not a big place." He described the incident as a "security failure, 100% security failure."
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is going to investigate the assassination attempt. Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement on Saturday that the Director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, and "other appropriate officials" from the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation would "appear for a hearing before our committees ASAP."
The House Oversight Committee said in a post to X that it had "invited" Cheatle to "testify at a hearing" on July 22.
"Americans demand answers about the assassination attempt of President Trump," the committee, steered by Kentucky Republican Representative James Comer, added in a statement.
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines