WASHINGTON – Republican candidate Donald Trump was the target of an attempted assassination, said FBI officials hours after the shocking shooting incident at a Pennsylvania rally.
Law enforcement officers said they had tentatively identified a suspected shooter but did not disclose details. The former US president, who was shot in the ear, was “fine”, said the Trump campaign.
The suspected gunman and a bystander were killed at the rally. World leaders have condemned the attack, which came just days before the Republican National Convention.
Donald Trump was hit in the ear in an assassination attempt by a gunman at a campaign rally Saturday, in a chaotic and shocking incident that fueled political tensions ahead of the US presidential election.
The 78-year-old former president was rushed off stage with blood streaked across his face after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, while the shooter and a bystander were killed and two spectators critically injured.
The Republican candidate raised a defiant fist to the crowd as he was bundled away to safety, and said afterward: “I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.”
President Joe Biden, who is set to face Trump in November’s deeply polarized election, said the incident was “sick” and added that there was “no place in America for this kind of violence.”
Biden later spoke to Trump, the White House said.
Unconfirmed images appeared to show the assailant’s body lying on the sloping roof of a low building from where he had fired, plunging the rally filled with Trump supporters into screams and panic.
The FBI confirmed in a press conference that the shooting was being treated as “an assassination attempt against our former president, Donald Trump.”
The shooter had been “tentatively identified,” police said, and was believed to be working alone, but law enforcement officials said they would not release any details yet.
After multiple witnesses said they saw the gunman before the shooting and alerted authorities, Butler police said they had “responded to a number of reports of suspicious activity” but gave no further details.
Source: Agencies
