Seven days ago a gunman’s bullet came within millimetres of killing Donald Trump, who told his followers on Thursday: ‘I shouldn’t be here. I had God on my side.’
As debate rages about the assassin’s motive and the mistakes made by those in charge of the former president’s security, Jonathan Mayo gives a gripping minute-by-minute account of the day a peaceful election rally turned to bloodshed…
Saturday, July 13, 10am
At the Butler Farm Show Grounds in Pennsylvania, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, final touches are being made to lighting rigs, grandstand seating and yards of red, white and blue bunting.
Normally the 100-acre Show Grounds are used for agricultural fairs and tractor exhibitions but, today, former US president Donald Trump will be holding an election rally.
Trump supporters cheer before the former president takes to the stage in Pennyslvania
A man holds up a ‘Joe Biden is cooked’ sign as supporters eagerly wait for Donald Trump to speak
The ex-president is popular here – in 2016 and 2020, he won Butler County both times with 65 per cent of the vote.
The organisers say that since the rally was announced ten days ago more than 15,000 tickets have been sold.
11am
A long-haired 20-year-old man named Thomas Matthew Crooks arrives at the Show Grounds. In May, he graduated from Allegheny County Community College with a degree in engineering but is currently working in the kitchen of a local care home.
A few days ago, Crooks asked his boss if he could have Saturday off as he had ‘something to do’.
Crooks is wearing a T-shirt with the name of a YouTube channel for firearms enthusiasts called Demolition Ranch on the front, which features videos such as ‘Is the AK-50 any good?’
Thomas Matthew Crooks (pictured) arrives at the show grounds wearing a grey shirt with the name of a YouTube channel for firearms enthusiasts called Demolition Ranch
Earlier this morning, Crooks drove 35 miles from his home in Bethel Park on the outskirts of Pittsburgh where he lives with his parents and older sister, to reconnoitre the Show Grounds, stopping to buy a 5ft ladder and 50 rounds of ammunition.
After hanging around for an hour, Crooks drives away.
Later he intends to return and assassinate Donald Trump.
2.30pm
US Secret Service and local law enforcement take up their positions. Three days ago, they made a security assessment of the area and decided where their officers and agents should be deployed.
Behind the stage are three large barns where Secret Service sniper teams will keep watch on the crowd, backed up by state troopers in the grass arena.
Outside the Show Grounds’ perimeter and about 400ft to the left of the stage is a large factory owned by a firm named AGR International but, as it has a sloping roof, it was decided that it is too much of a health and safety risk for police snipers, so officers will be stationed inside the building instead.
Snipers stand on the roof of a barn at the campaign rally in Pennsylvania
More snipers ready themselves ahead of Donald Trump’s appearance at the campaign rally
Details of the precise location of the stage from which Donald Trump will speak this afternoon have not been made public as such information could be useful to any potential assassin.
The Secret Service is proud of the fact that no president under their care has been injured since shots were fired at Ronald Reagan in March 1981.
3pm
The gates to the Show Grounds are opened to the public and everyone entering is scanned for weapons by metal detectors. Thomas Crooks has parked his car at a nearby gas station and as he walks through a detector, a rangefinder in his pocket – used to measure the distance of long-range targets – sets off an alarm.
Security finds nothing else incriminating and so Crooks is allowed in, but police keep an eye on him until he eventually leaves the arena.
The temperature is now a sweltering 90F(32C).
5.06pm
Crooks is walking outside the perimeter of the Show Grounds.
Nearby he has concealed a bag containing an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle (one of over 20 legally-owned weapons that belong to his father), ammunition, the rangefinder and a transmitter to activate two explosive devices hidden in the boot of his car to provide a distraction during the shooting.
Crooks has left a third bomb in his home.
As he walks past the AGR factory building outside the perimeter, the would-be assassin is spotted by police officers who think he looks suspicious, but they lose sight of him.
5.40pm
Donald Trump’s motorcade arrives at the Show Grounds to ecstatic applause and cheering from supporters.
Today is Trump’s final public appearance before the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee where he will be officially selected as the party’s nominee for president.
Trump’s campaign is on a roll after his debate on June 28 with a confused and often incoherent President Joe Biden.
Trump declared the following day: ‘Joe Biden’s age is not his problem. It’s his competence.’
Opinion polls put Trump ahead by as much as six points.
5.45pm
A Secret Service sniper in the arena spots Crooks holding the rangefinder near the AGR International factory.
The photo of Thomas Crooks circulated to police before the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. He is seen wearing the Demolition Ranch t-shirt
He calls in with a report and sends a photo of the man to his colleagues around the arena.
Soon police and Secret Service radios are crackling with reports of a ‘suspicious male’ near the building.
6.05pm
It’s the moment the 15,000 people in the Show Grounds have been waiting for – Donald Trump climbs on to the stage wearing his trademark red Make America Great Again baseball cap and joins in their clapping.
As the rapturous applause dies down he tells them ‘This is a big crowd. This is a big, big, beautiful crowd’, and they roar back their approval.
Trump goes on: ‘Our country is going to hell if you haven’t noticed. Millions and millions of people are pouring in from prisons and mental institutions, we’re going to stop it.’
Donald Trump arrives onstage to rapturous applause at the campaign rally in Pennsylvania. He wears his trademark red Make America Great Again baseball cap
Trump joins in with the applause from the crowd at Butler Farm Show Grounds
An officer from the Butler Police Department is searching the area around the factory but has yet to find Crooks.
6.08pm
Crooks uses an air-conditioning unit on an outside wall to clamber on to the factory, and then shimmies up its sloping roof to get a clear view of the stage. He has with him his father’s AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.
Below him, a couple of Trump fans named Mike and Amber DiFrischia, who arrived late for the rally, have found a spot close to the perimeter and to their horror spot Crooks and his rifle and assume the crowd must be his target.
Amber said later: ‘You don’t know whether to hit the deck, hide or just stand still. It’s very chaotic in those split seconds.’
They decide to run and hide behind a tree and Mike starts filming the gunman.
6.10pm
Members of the public are pointing towards the factory roof shouting: ‘He’s got a gun!’
In response, an officer from the Butler Police Department is hoisted up 8ft on to the roof by a colleague.
As the policeman grips the edge of the building, Crooks swings round and points his rifle at him.
Thinking he’s about to be shot and unable to unholster his gun, the policeman drops to the ground and immediately alerts others to Crooks’s location.
Investigators believe this unexpected encounter with the officer may have spurred Crooks to ‘hurry his shots’.
6.11pm
On the stage Trump has turned to his right and is pointing to a chart on a giant screen showing the scale of illegal immigration into the United States.
Crooks takes aim at the former president’s head.
The previous day the 20 year-old visited a gun club where he is a member to practise on the rifle range. The club’s range is 200 yards long – Donald Trump is standing 133 yards, or 400ft away.
6.11pm and 33 seconds
Trump turns very slightly to face the crowd and says: ‘That chart’s a couple of months old and if you really want to see something that’s sad, take a look at what happ-‘.
Suddenly shots ring out and Trump hears what he later described as ‘the world’s largest mosquito’ and is hit on his right ear. He winces, touches the side of his face, looks at his hand which is covered in blood and then drops to the floor.
Black-suited Secret Service agents in dark glasses storm the stage to cover him. One agent shouts, ‘Get down! Get down!’
Trump winces, touches the side of his face, looks at his hand which is covered in blood and then drops to the floor
Black-suited Secret Service agents in dark glasses storm the stage to cover Donald Trump
Crooks keeps firing and the audience start screaming and a bullet hits the hydraulic line of a forklift holding a bank of speakers and the lift’s arm collapses.
In the stands to Trump’s right, former fire chief Corey Comperatore, 50, says to his wife and two daughters, ‘Get down!’ and pushes them towards the ground before he is hit in the head by a bullet.
Moments before Trump began his speech the family had been standing off to the side but were offered front row seats. Two other men, David Dutch 57, and James Copenhaver 74, are critically injured by the gunfire.
Crooks fires eight times in all. In the midst of the chaos, a woman in a black baseball cap sitting behind the stage calmly gets out her phone and starts filming, a move that ignites the internet with wild conspiracy theories about her involvement in the shooting.
Others point out that it merely shows how numbed many Americans have become to mass shootings.
6.11pm and 41 seconds
By now the Secret Service are completely screening the former president and in the melee Trump’s shoes have come off.
The microphone on the lectern picks up an agent saying: ‘What are we doing? What are we doing? Where are we going?’
The crowd are confused, some are filming on their phones, some grab their children and run for the exits, others point in the direction of the AGR factory building.
6.11pm and 50 seconds
Over the screams there is the sound of a single gunshot as Crooks is shot dead by a Secret Service sniper who according to one eyewitness, virtually ‘blew his head off’.
Crooks left a bullet proof vest inside his car, leading investigators to believe he intended to die that day.
Police snipers return fire after Donald Trump was shot at whilst speaking at a campaign event
Secret Service agents surround the stage as other personnel cover Donald Trump
Police personnel stand over the body of Thomas Crooks after he is shot dead by a Secret Service sniper
A Secret Service agent shielding Donald Trump says to his colleagues: ‘Go around to the spare. Go around to the spare.’ (A spare is a spare SUV limousine.)
In the stands Corey Comperatore’s wife Helen screams, ‘He’s been shot! He’s down!’
Emergency Room doctor Jim Sweetland hears her shout and rushes over to find the firefighter on the floor wedged between two benches, with blood and brain matter everywhere.
With the help of others, he gets Cory on to a bench so he can treat him, but Cory isn’t breathing so Dr Sweetland carries out CPR while someone else applies pressure to the headwound.
6.12pm and 6 seconds
Two fully armed and armoured members of the Hawkeye Secret Service Counter Assault team take positions beside the stage.
The agents around Trump are reluctant to move in case the would-be assassin strikes again, but then they get confirmation in their earpieces.
An agent says: ‘Shooter’s down. Shooter’s down.’
6.12pm and 33 seconds
Trump says to the agents around him, ‘Let me get my shoes.’
One replies, ‘Sir, we’ve got to move to the car, sir,’ but Trump insists they get his shoes first so they are thrown off the stage towards the spare limo and an agent picks up his MAGA hat.
Press photographers have surrounded the huddled group, capturing pictures of blood running down the side of Trump’s face.
Press photographers capture blood running down the side of Donald Trump’s face as Secret Service agents huddle around him
6.12pm and 47 seconds
The agents are about to rush Trump off stage, but he recognises the power of the moment and tells them, ‘Wait, wait, wait!’
Trump then stands up with his hair dishevelled and fist pumps the crowd mouthing, ‘Fight, fight, fight!’ They roar their relief.
Veteran photojournalist Evan Vucci who has taken pictures in riots and warzones has sprinted to the side of the stage where he reckons the agents will lead Trump to safety.
He said later: ‘In my head, I just kept saying to myself, ‘Slow down, slow down. Compose, compose.’
As an agent looks right down the lens, and as a bloodied Trump raises his fist with the Stars and Stripes flying behind him, Vucci takes an iconic photo.
The Secret Service agents can’t delay any longer and help Trump down the steps towards the waiting limo. Trump raises his fist one final time and gets in.
Trump stands up with his hair dishevelled and fist pumps the crowd mouthing, ‘Fight, fight, fight!’
Veteran photojournalist Evan Vucci captures the moment an agent looks down the lens as a bloodied Donald Trump raises his fist and the American flag flies high behind him
A group of Secret Service agents can’t delay any longer and help Trump down the steps towards the waiting limo
6.14pm
After Dr Sweetland has carried out of CPR on Corey Comperatore for two minutes, a Pennsylvania state trooper taps the medic on the shoulder and together with another officer picks up the wounded man, in Sweetland’s words, ‘like a rag doll’ and on to a stretcher.
All Sweetland can say to reassure the firefighter’s distressed family is ‘Corey’s going to go to a place where he can get help.’
Around them everyone is subdued.
Trump supporter Saurabh Sharma told a reporter: ‘It wasn’t like what you’d expect out of a crowd that just experienced something like this, everyone was really quiet.
‘There were a few women crying. They were saying, “I can’t believe they tried to kill him”.’
Corey Comperatore (right) died after throwing himself over his family to prevent them from being shot at the campaign rally
6.30pm
Donald Trump arrives at the Butler Memorial Hospital and staff carry out several tests including a CT scan which all come back normal.
Ronny Jackson, who served as Trump’s White House doctor, told reporters later that Trump was missing part of his ear.
‘He was lucky. It was far enough away from his head that there was no concussive effects from the bullet.
‘And it just took the top of his ear off, a little bit of the top of his ear, as it passed through.’
8.42pm
Trump sends out a message on his Truth Social website thanking the Secret Service and law enforcement for their rapid response.
‘I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin.
‘It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country.’
Soon after, his motorcade pulls away from the hospital escorted by police.
11pm
Matthew Crooks calls the local police to report his son missing.
He tells them that Thomas had asked to borrow a rifle for a trip to a shooting range and said he’d be home at 1pm but hadn’t returned.
Soon after, the FBI arrive to search the Crooks’ house.
A shocked Matthew Crooks tells news network CNN that he is trying to figure out ‘what the hell is going on’.
Aftermath
Even after a thorough search of Thomas Crooks’ mobile phone and computer, his motive for wanting to assassinate Donald Trump continues to mystify the investigators.
It was revealed that Crooks was a member of the Republican Party and although a loner at school and college he had impressed his teachers with his conscientious work.
There remains widespread anger that the Secret Service had not apprehended Crooks sooner and had allowed Trump to take the stage despite there being a threat.
The Butler Farm Show grounds after Donald Trump was shot on Saturday, July 13. The shooter was positioned on the roof of the closest building on the left
A shoe remains on the stage after Donald Trump was wounded by a bullet and escorted away
Leading Republicans have called for Secret Service director Kim Cheatle to resign. Senator John Barrasso said: ‘Someone has died. The President was almost killed. The head of the Secret Service needs to go.’
David Dutch and James Copenhaver survived the shooting but firefighter Corey Comperatore died from his wounds. A GoFundMe page for his family has so far raised more than $6 million (£4.6 million).
Jonathan Mayo is the author of The Assassination of JFK: Minute by Minute, published by Short Books