How Trump Escaped Assassination, Shot In Right Ear At Campaign Rally (+photos)

BUTLER, PENNSYLVANIA, USA – The Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump was on Saturday, July 13, 2024 escaped assassination, when he was shot in the ear, during a campaign rally.

According to the Reuters the bullet streaked Trump’s blood across his face and prompting his security agents to swarm him. He later emerged and pumped his fist in the air, saying, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

The Secret Service however said in a statement that the “shooter was dead, one rally attendee was killed and two other spectators were injured.”

The incident was being investigated as an assassination attempt, a source told Reuters.

Trump, 78, had just started his speech when the shots rang out.

He grabbed his right ear with his right hand, then brought his hand down to look at it before dropping to his knees behind the podium before Secret Service agents swarmed and covered him.

He however emerged about a minute later, his red “Make America Great Again” hat knocked off, and could be heard saying, “wait, wait,” before agents ushered him into a vehicle.

“I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform following the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles (50 km) north of Pittsburgh. “Much bleeding took place.”

The shooter’s identity and motive were not immediately clear.

Leading Republicans and Democrats quickly condemned the violence.

The Trump campaign said he was “doing well.”

The shooting occurred less than four months before the Nov. 5 election, when Trump faces an election rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.

Most opinion polls including those by Reuters/Ipsos show the two locked in a close contest.

Biden said in a statement: “There’s no place for this kind of violence in America. We must unite as one nation to condemn it.”

Republican U.S. Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas told Fox News that his nephew had been wounded at the rally.

“He was grazed in the neck. A bullet crossed his neck, cut his neck and he was bleeding,” Johnson said.

Ron Moose, a Trump supporter who was at the rally, described the chaos: “I heard about four shots and I saw the crowd go down and then Trump ducked also real quick.

“Then the Secret Service all jumped and protected him as soon as they could. We are talking within a second they were all protecting him.”

Moose said he then saw a man running and being chased by officers in military uniforms.

He said he heard additional shots, but was unsure who fired them, stressing that by then snipers had set up on the roof of a warehouse behind the stage.

According to a man who described himself as an eyewitness, interviewed by BBC, saying he saw a man armed with a rifle crawling up a roof near the event.

The person, who the BBC did not identify, said he and the people he was with started pointing at the man, trying to alert security.

The shots appeared to come from outside the area secured by the Secret Service, the agency said.

The FBI said it had taken the lead in investigating the attack.

*Source: REUTERS.