The Republican National Convention is set to get underway in Milwaukee, following an apparent assassination attempt on presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. A barrage of gunfire set off panic Saturday, and a bloodied Trump was surrounded by Secret Service and hurried to his SUV as he pumped his fist in a show of defiance. Firearms may be an issue going into this week's RNC Convention, and APR spoke with Alabama GOP Chairman John Wahl about it prior to Saturday’s attack.
Pat Duggins: The City of Milwaukee, according to state laws, I understand, is going to allow passers by to carry guns in the outer perimeter, obviously not inside the convention hall itself. Again, any thoughts of that?
Alabama GOP Chairman John Wahl: I actually am very supportive of that. I believe, you know, that's a constitutional right. The Republican Party believes in the Second Amendment, whether it's for Republicans or Democrats. And I think knowing that's there that actually, has the potential to keep this convention safer than it's ever been, because we know, historically, data has taught us that. Gun Violence is most likely to happen in gun free zones. And this will not be a gun free zone. And I think you're going to see, you know, a lot of a lot of conservatives carrying and a lot of across people across the board, and I think that hopefully will actually help keep any thought of gun violence firmly away from this event. I think it's proper. This is a constitutional right for the people of Wisconsin, for the people who are coming to visit, and I'm glad they made that decision.”
Again, Wahl’s comments were made before the attack that injured presumptive GOP nominee Trump. APR News caught up with Wahl for a follow-up interview which can be found here. Over two hundred Alabama delegates are expected to attend the RNC Convention in Milwaukee.
Trump's campaign said the presumptive GOP nominee was doing "fine" after the shooting, which he said pierced the upper part of his right ear. The FBI early Sunday named 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the subject involved in the assassination attempt. A local prosecutor said the suspected gunman and at least one attendee were dead.
Wisconsin State law reportedly will allow guns in the outer security perimeter of the convention. Back in June, Milwaukee Alderman Robert Bauman tried to fully ban firearms from the area around the event completely. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports the city leader argued that the law allowing weapons did not take into account a convention the size of the RNC event. The paper says his effort was rejected by a city common committee.
Secret Service agents fatally shot Crooks, who attacked from an elevated position outside the rally venue at a farm show in Butler, Pennsylvania, the agency said.
One attendee was killed and two spectators were critically injured, authorities said. All were identified as men. The attack was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. It drew new attention to concerns about political violence in a deeply polarized U.S. less than four months before the presidential election. And it could alter the tenor and security posture at the Republican National Convention, which will begin Monday in Milwaukee.
Organizers said the convention would proceed as planned.
Trump flew to New Jersey after visiting a local Pennsylvania hospital, landing shortly after midnight at Newark Liberty International Airport. Video posted by an aide showed the former president deplaning his private jet flanked by U.S. Secret Service agents and heavily armed members of the agency's counter assault team, an unusually visible show of force by his protective detail.
President Joe Biden, who is running against Trump, was briefed on the incident and spoke to Trump several hours after the shooting, the White House said. "There's no place in America for this type of violence," the president said in public remarks. "It's sick. It's sick." Biden planned to return to Washington early, cutting short a weekend at his beach home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
Many Republicans quickly blamed the violence on Biden and his allies, arguing that sustained attacks on Trump as a threat to democracy have created a toxic environment. They pointed in particular to a comment Biden made to donors on July 8, saying "it's time to put Trump in the bullseye."
Officials said members of the U.S. Secret Service counterassault team killed the shooter. The heavily armed tactical team travels everywhere with the president and major party nominees and is meant to confront any active threats while other agents focus on safeguarding and evacuating the person at the center of protection. Law enforcement recovered an AR-style rifle at the scene, according to a third person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. An AP analysis of more than a dozen videos and photos from the scene of the Trump rally, as well as satellite imagery of the site, shows the shooter was able to get astonishingly close to the stage where the former president was speaking.
A video posted to social media and geolocated by the AP shows the body of a person wearing gray camouflage lying motionless on the roof of a building at AGR International Inc., a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm Show grounds where Trump's rally was held. The roof where the person lay was less than 150 meters from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target. For reference, 150 meters is a distance at which U.S. Army recruits must hit a scaled human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M-16 rifle. The AR-15, like the shooter at the Trump rally had, is the semi-automatic civilian version of the military M-16.
Asked at the press conference whether law enforcement did not know the shooter was on the roof until he began firing, Kevin Rojek, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Pittsburgh Field Office, responded that "that is our assessment at this time."
"It is surprising" that the gunman was able to open fire on the stage before the Secret Service killed him, he added.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose department oversees the Secret Service, said officials were engaged with the Biden and Trump campaigns and "taking every possible measure to ensure their safety and security."
Trump was showing off a chart of border crossing numbers when the gunfire began after 6:10 p.m.
As the first pop rang out, Trump said, "Oh," and the raised his hand to his right ear and looked at it, before quickly crouching to the ground behind his lectern. The people in the stands behind him also crouched down as screams rang through the crowd. Someone could be heard near the microphone saying, "Get down, get down, get down, get down!" as agents rushed to the stage. They piled atop the former president to shield him with their bodies, as is their training protocol, as other agents took up positions on stage to search for the threat.
Screams were heard in the crowd of several thousand people. A woman screamed louder than the rest. Afterward, voices were heard saying "shooter's down" several times, before someone asked "are we good to move?" and "are we clear?" Then, someone ordered, "Let's move."
Trump could be heard on the video saying at least twice, "Let me get my shoes, let me get my shoes," with another voice heard saying, "I've got you sir." Trump got to his feet moments later and could be seen reaching with his right hand toward his face, which was smeared with blood on his face. He then pumped his fist in the air and appeared to mouth the word "Fight" twice to his crowd of supporters, prompting loud cheers and then chants of "USA. USA. USA."
The crowd cheered as he got back up and pumped his fist.
His motorcade left the venue moments later. Video showed Trump turning back to the crowd and raising a fist right before he was put into a vehicle. Witnesses heard multiple gunshots and ducked for cover
"Everybody went to their knees or their prone position, because we all knew, everyone becoming aware of the fact this was gunfire," said Dave McCormick, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, who was sitting to Trump's right on stage.
As he saw Trump raise his fist, McCormick said, he looked over his shoulder and noticed someone had been hit while sitting in the bleachers behind the stage. Eventually, first responders were able to carry the injured person out of a large crowd so he could get medical care, McCormick said.
Reporters covering the rally heard five or six shots ring out and many ducked for cover, hiding under tables. After the first two or three bangs, people in the crowd looked startled, but not panicked. An AP reporter at the scene reported the noise sounded like firecrackers at first or perhaps a car backfiring. When it was clear the situation had been contained and Trump would not return to speak, attendees started filing out of the venue. One man in an electric wheelchair got stuck on the field when his chair's battery died. Others tried to help him move.
Police soon told the people remaining to leave the venue and Secret Service agents told reporters to get "out now. This is a live crime scene." Two firefighters from nearby Steubenville, Ohio, who were at the rally told the AP that they helped people who appeared injured and heard bullets hitting broadcast speakers.
"The bullets rattled around the grandstand, one hit the speaker tower and then chaos broke. We hit the ground and then the police converged into the grandstands," Chris Takach said.
"The first thing I heard is a couple of cracks," Dave Sullivan said. Sullivan said he saw one of the speakers get hit and bullets rattling and, "we hit the deck."
He said once Secret Service and other authorities converged on Trump, he and Takach assisted two people who may have been shot in the grandstand and cleared a path to get them out of the way.
"Just a sad day for America," said Sullivan, who recalled that fluid sprayed from a mechanical line on the stage before a speaker tower started to fall.
"Then we heard another shot that, you could hear, you knew something was, it was bullets. It wasn't firecrackers," he said.
The perils of campaigning took on a new urgency after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in California in 1968, and again in 1972 when Arthur Bremer shot and seriously hurt George Wallace, who was running as an independent on a campaign platform that has sometimes been compared to Trump's. That led to increased protection of candidates, even as the threats persisted, notably against Jesse Jackson in 1988 and Barack Obama in 2008.
Presidents, particularly after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, have even greater layers of security. Trump is a rarity as both a former president and a current candidate.
