A witness at the Pennsylvania fairgrounds Saturday evening during the attempted shooting of former President Donald Trump told the BBC that he was outside the rally at the Butler County Fairgrounds in Pennsylvania when he saw a man with a rifle crawling on a roof near where Trump was on stage.
"We noticed the guy crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50 feet away from us," the man, only identified as "Greg" commented. "He had a rifle, we could clearly see him with a rifle."
The witness said he and others pointed out the man to police.
"Next thing you know, I’m thinking to myself why is Trump still speaking?" the man said. "Why have they not pulled him off the stage? I’m standing there pointing at him... the next thing you know, five shots ring out."
Another witness, identifying himself as "Tim," told the BBC that he heard a "barrage of shots."
"There was a spray which we initially thought was a firehose, and then the speaker on the right-hand side started coming down. Something must have hit the hydraulic lines (which caused it to fall)," he said. "We saw President Trump go to the ground and everyone started dropping to the ground because it was chaos."
Another witness said he heard five shots ring out in quick succession.
"We see the Secret Service jump on Trump to protect him. Everyone in the crowd dropped down very quickly," the witness said. "He stood up and put his fist up in the air. He was a little bloody, his ear was bleeding."
Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., who was standing backstage while Trump was speaking, told CBS News "I believe a lady who was next to me was hit, other people were hit."
CBS News campaign reporter Jake Rosen, meanwhile, interviewed an eyewitness who had blood on his shirt, who told him he was an ER doctor and performed CPR on a victim who had suffered a head wound.
"I heard the shots," the doctor said. "I thought it was firecrackers to begin with. Somebody over there was screaming he's been shot. He's been shot. So I made my way over. I said, I'm an emergency department physician. Let me help you. The guy has spun around was jammed between the benches. He had a headshot here. There's lots of blood and he had brain matter there."
The man added that a helicopter was coming for the shooting victim.
According to CBS Pittsburgh, a medivac helicopter landed at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh and a person was brought in, but that person's identity and condition were unknown.
Another helicopter landed at the hospital shortly after, after a black SUV with police lights arrived.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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