Assassination Attempt at Trump Campaign Rally

[Yazata]

In Butler PA (north of Pittsburg)

Trump was on the stage, several loud pops sounded, Trump grabbed his ear, realized what was happening and hit the deck. Several Secret Service agents jumped on top of him.

The shooter was atop a nearby one story building with a rifle. Secret Service snipers spotted him and killed him.

Trump was grazed in his right ear. If the bullet had been an inch over, he would be dead. The wound was bleeding and probably looked worse than it was at the time. The Secret Service rushed him off and took him to a nearby hospital for evaluation. He's OK.

But unfortunately, there was a crowd behind Trump and the bullets that missed him went into the crowd. One person was shot in the head and died, reports say two more were critically injured. There's also talk of minor wounds like Trump's.

There's still no word on the shooter's identity.

The Republican Convention starts Monday, both Trump and the RNC say it will go on as planned, and knowing Trump he will be energized and defiant.

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The Secret Service hustling Trump off the stage

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[Syne]

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This picture is the new Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. An unmistakable picture of patriotic triumph over evil, complete with old glory.

This is the final nail in the coffin for any Democrat hopes. They have no choices that help them at this point.

They either:

1) Express support for Trump, at least to the extent of being glad he's fine and condemning political violence. This simultaneously condemns their own rhetoric:
5 days before apparent assassination attempt, Biden told Democrats: 'It's time to put Trump in the bull's-eye'
And condemning all of their own far-left base that has been wishing for just such a thing to happen.
It also shows the lie to claims that they honesty think Trump is Hitler/Nazi. You cannot genuinely think Trump is a Nazi and also be glad he survived an assassination attempt.
Either way, there will be ubiquitous expressions of support for Trump, across the political spectrum.

2) Show any signs of satisfaction over the assassination attempt. This just makes you look like an evil prick who literally condones terrorism (violence to forward a political ends) in the US.

They also have to contend with their own gun control agenda. Like the transgender mass shooter, they will avoid it in this case, as it, at least initially, seems to implicate a leftist. That doesn't fit their narrative of right-wingers being the source of all political violence. And the only alternative is to fall back on "hopes and prayers" that they have condemned as being empty words, and a way to avoid doing anything to help fight gun violence.

So they either look like evil assholes, for everyone to see, or they have to essentially sound like Republicans, talking about law and order, hope and prayers, etc., and show themselves as liars.

[C C]

Nearest remote semblance I've seen so far to identifying the shooter...

Witness tells BBC he saw gunman on roof
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4v7v2g5l1o

EXCERPTS: Greg Smith said the man had crawled on top of a building just outside the event in Butler County on Friday evening. [huh?!!]

He said he pointed the gunman out to police.

"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."

We noticed the guy bear-crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50ft away," he said. "He had a rifle, we could clearly see a rifle.

"We're pointing at him, the police are down there running around on the ground, we're like 'Hey man, there's a guy on the roof with a rifle'... and the police did not know what was going on."

Mr Smith said he tried to alert the authorities for three to four minutes, but thought they probably could not see the gunman because of the slope of the roof.

"Why is there not Secret Service on all of these roofs here?" he asked. "This is not a big place. "[It's a] security failure, 100% security failure."

He said he later saw the agents shoot the gunman: "They crawled up on the roof, they had their guns pointed at him, made sure he was dead. He was dead, and that was it - it was over."

[Syne]

@1:52 the BBC is very concerned about their delicate viewers:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/cG0qPDCWE9w

[Yazata]

Fox reports that the deceased shooter is a 20 year old Pennnsylvania man. Nothing more as of yet.

They also report that police (including bomb squad) have swarmed a parked van about a mile away from the rally site Butler PA. I'm assuming that it is associated with the shooter.

They are holding a press conference - The FBI says the shooter didn't have ID on him and they are trying to identify him biometrically.

Very uninformative press conference - they say the shooter was a young white male apparently in his twenties. They don't know his motive or his associations. It sounds like the van might have been false lead.

[C C]

Fox reports that the deceased shooter is a 20 year old Pennnsylvania man. Nothing more as of yet.

They also report that police (including bomb squad) have swarmed a parked van about a mile away from the rally site Butler PA. I'm assuming that it is associated with the shooter.

"The gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump Saturday was identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, sources told The Post."
https://nypost.com/2024/07/13/us-news/th...-pa-rally/

"Crooks was a registered Republican and donated $15 to the Democratic Party fundraising organization ActBlue on January 20, 2021, the day of Joe Biden's inauguration. He had last voted in the 2022 Pennsylvania elections. As he did not carry identification on his person at the time of his death, his identity was confirmed by law enforcement via fingerprint biometrics and DNA profiling."

Supposedly there's a woman in this video yelling "Crooks! Get over here!" (probably just a similar sounding name): https://x.com/rawsalerts/status/1812340071825088774

Wikipedia article already up:

2024 shooting at a Donald Trump rally
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_shoot...rump_rally

[Magical Realist]

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[Syne]

^^^That makes you an evil piece of shit.

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"The gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump Saturday was identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, sources told The Post."
https://nypost.com/2024/07/13/us-news/th...-pa-rally/

"Crooks was a registered Republican and donated $15 to the Democratic Party fundraising organization ActBlue on January 20, 2021, the day of Joe Biden's inauguration. He had last voted in the 2022 Pennsylvania elections. As he did not carry identification on his person at the time of his death, his identity was confirmed by law enforcement via fingerprint biometrics and DNA profiling."

Donated to ActBlue before turning 18 and registering as a Republican. Obviously in an attempt to spoil the GOP primary, in a closed primary state.

[Yazata]

^^^That makes you an evil piece of shit.

It is kind of funny though. I wouldn't put it past Hillary.

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"The gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump Saturday was identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks

I'm not 100% convinced of that. It's only been about 12 hours and this is already starting to look like the Kennedy assassination. There's all kinds of fake Thomas Matthew Crooks content on the internet, suggesting that somebody is really trying to muddy the waters. (And I have just about zero confidence in the FBI at this point, when it comes to political cases.)

For what it's worth, here's a photo of the shooter on his rooftop perch. I'm reasonably confident this is really the shooter.

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And this is alleged to be him after he was shot by Secret Service snipers. I don't know the provinence of this photo. If it's real, it could only have come from official sources.

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[C C]

[...] It's only been about 12 hours and this is already starting to look like the Kennedy assassination. (I have about zero confidence in the FBI) [...]

The Cigarette Smoking Man really blew it this time around. But at least they didn't need a Jack Ruby for the patsy (took care of it on site).