“He shot at us all”

BUTLER, Pa.—Outside the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds amphitheater on Saturday, Zach Freeman first knew something was amiss when he saw a loudspeaker for former President Donald Trump’s rally “blowing up like a Roman candle.” Then he heard gunshots.

Freeman and thousands of rallygoers became eyewitnesses to a flashpoint in history—the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate for the first time in more than half a century. WORLD spoke with some of them who reflected on what they saw and how they are making sense of it.

Freeman, a former Marine, said that after the shooting, the crowd filed out of the area calmly but confused. “It was the most disciplined civilian crowd I have ever seen,” he said.

Trump stopped in Butler, population about 17,000, for a swing-state rally on his way to this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. As he talked about immigration policy, a 20-year-old gunman fired multiple shots with an AR-style rifle from a rooftop outside the safety perimeter of the event, killing 50-year-old Corey Comperatore and injuring three other people, including Trump. Secret Service agents shot and killed the shooter at the scene. A bullet hit Trump’s ear, and he was treated and released at a local hospital. Authorities said later that victims David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74, were in stable condition.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro ordered flags to fly at half-staff starting Sunday in honor of Comperatore, whom he referred to as a churchgoer, father of two daughters, and a firefighter. Witnesses later said that Comperatore died while shielding his wife and daughter from gunfire. “He shoved his family out of the way, and he got killed for them,” his neighbor, Mike Morehouse, told the Associated Press. “He’s a hero that I was happy to have as a neighbor.” As of Monday afternoon, a GoFundMe fundraiser for the family had raised over $1 million to support the Comperatore family.

Elli Fry was at the rally, standing about 50 feet behind the former president. When she first heard the shots, she thought they were firecrackers. Then security guards yelled for her and her friends to get down. “We waited till they told us to get back up, and we had to move because there was so much blood from the person that was hit,” she told WORLD.

When she got up, she saw blood on the bleachers and another attendee’s shirt. As she left the area, she saw police officers carrying a victim.

Rally attendee and Army veteran Josiah Kostek said he stood in line for hours to enter the event. Despite people being “jammed in like sardines,” he said, everyone was polite and kind.

But then he heard something pinging off metal. He said the hydraulic crane behind him, which held up a line of loudspeakers, began to sink and spill fluid everywhere.

He panned his camera to look at Trump just as a bullet grazed the former president’s ear. As everyone ducked for cover, Kostek pushed his mother behind him.

A group passed Kostek, carrying a man “white as a ghost … he looked lifeless,” Kostek said.

“You feel helpless,” added Kostek, an Army veteran. “In five seconds it’s over. Now all that’s left is the dead, pain, and emotional scarring. There is nothing you can do. It’s over. I’m sure a lot of veterans feel that way.”

As the Secret Service whisked Trump off the stage, Kostek saw him rise up and raise a fist in the air.

“When we saw our leader stand up, we all stood up. We didn’t know the sniper was out, and we didn’t care,” Kostek said. “It was amazing. The comradery, we were a family and we all got hurt together. He shot at us all and hurt us all.”