Trump rally shooting being investigated as attempt on his life as spectator killed

Law enforcement agents were investigating what they suspected was an attempt to assassinate Donald Trump after a man with a rifle fired shots at him during a campaign rally on Saturday in Butler county, Pennsylvania.

The Secret Service spokesperson, Anthony Guglielmi, said on X that the former Republican president was “safe” following several shots, which prompted agents protecting Trump to leap on him amid the ensuing panic. Guglielmi said Secret Service agents then fatally shot the suspected attacker – who had fired toward Trump “from an elevated position outside of the rally venue”, Guglielmi said.

Related: What we know about reports of shots fired at Donald Trump rally

One spectator was killed and two others were critically wounded. The FBI later identified the shooter as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, the Associated Press reported.

Officials have not publicly disclosed a possible motive. A public records database showed a Bethel Park man with the exact same name and age as Crooks registered to vote as a Republican in 2021. Yet federal campaign finance reports also show he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on 20 January 2021, the first day Democratic president Joe Biden took office.

In a pair of statements, Trump said he was “fine” after a bullet hit “the upper part of [his] right ear”.

The former president also issued thanks to the Secret Service agents as well as other law enforcement officers for “their rapid response” in a Truth Social post in the shooting’s aftermath.

“Mostly importantly, I want to extend my condolences to the family of the person at the rally who was killed and also to the family of [those] badly injured,” said Trump, who was taken to a hospital for evaluation and then reportedly released about 10.20pm local time.

“It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country.”

Video from NBC News captured more than a dozen shots, with later ones apparently coming from agents protecting the former president, who had been speaking on stage at the time.

A voice could be heard saying: “Get down, get down, get down!” Agents arrived to throw themselves on top of Trump as the gunfire continued and screams were heard from the crowd.

Audio from the network captured agent’s voices saying: “Shooter’s down. Shooter’s down. Are we good to move? We’re clear, we’re clear.”

As agents tried to move Trump off the stage at the rally, he said: “Let me get my shoes. Let me get my shoes.” Agents can be heard telling the former president: “I got you. Hold on. Your head is bloody. We’ve got to move.”

Trump replied: “Wait, wait.” He then pumped his fist, mouthed the words: “Fight, fight, fight.”

And the crowd at the rally responded with cries of: “USA! USA! USA!”

Armed troops in uniform soon arrived as some spectators shouted abuse at the media.

Agents then whisked Trump away from sight.

Video showed blood on Trump’s ear. There were also snipers on a roof near the stage where Trump was standing, the Reuters news agency reported.

NBC News, citing two senior law enforcement officials, reported there was growing concern among investigators that the shooting at the Trump rally “may have been a serious attempt on his life”.

The local district attorney, Richard Goldinger, appeared on CNN and said he wasn’t sure how the suspected shooter “would’ve gotten to the location where he was”.

“That’s something we’re going to have to figure out – how he got there.”

The BBC, meanwhile, interviewed a Trump supporter who said he was outside the rally site and had been trying to get close enough to hear the former president speak when he saw a man carrying a rifle climb on to the roof of a building.

The man said he pointed out the building in question to police and remarked: “There’s a guy on the roof with a rifle.” But none of the police reacted, and about two minutes later, the man fired five or so shots toward Trump.

At that point, the man told the BBC, Secret Service agents shot the attacker to death. “They blew his head off,” the man said.

Investigators recovered an AR-style rifle at the scene, the AP reported, quoting a law enforcement source.

The AP reportedly geolocated a video posted to social media which showed the body of a person lying motionless on the roof of a building at AGR International, a manufacturing plant just north of Saturday’s Trump rally.

“The roof was less than 164 yards from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target,” the AP’s Scott Bauer wrote on X.

Biden said on X that he had been briefed on the reported shooting.

“I’m grateful to hear that he’s safe and doing well,” the president said of Trump, with whom he reportedly spoke on Saturday night. “I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information.”

In a televised address, Biden urged widespread condemnation of political violence.

“The bottom line is, the Trump rally … should have been able to be conducted peacefully without any problem,” Biden said. “But the idea … that there’s political violence … in America like this is just unheard of. It’s just not appropriate. Everybody must condemn it.”

The scenes from the rally prompted a flood of reactions, including among Trump’s fellow Republicans.

The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, wrote on X that his congressional chamber would “conduct a full investigation of the tragic events today”.

“The American people deserve to know the truth,” Johnson said, pledging that the House would summon officials from the Secret Service, homeland security and FBI for hearings as soon as possible.

Former Republican president George W Bush said he was “grateful” that Trump was “safe following the cowardly attack on his life”.

The top Democrat in the US House, Hakeem Jeffries, offered prayers to Trump.

“I am thankful for the decisive law enforcement response,” Jeffries wrote on X. “America is a democracy. Political violence of any kind is never acceptable.”

The former Democratic president Barack Obama said in a separate statement: “There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy. Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, we should all be relieved that former president Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics.”

In a Guardian interview in June, Steve Bannon – a Trump adviser and former White House chief strategist – spoke of his concerns that the Republican nominee would be assassinated before the election in November.

“It’s my number one fear,” Bannon said, speaking before he began a four-month prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena. “Assassination has to be at the top of the list and I believe that the woman that’s running the Secret Service part is not doing her job.”

Referring to the Republican national convention, due to start Monday, he added: “I’m not comfortable with what’s happening in Milwaukee.” But he added: “His detachment is fantastic.”

Bannon argued that Trump had been portrayed as a new Julius Caesar everywhere from a New York theatre production to an essay by leading scholar Robert Kagan, paving the way for a would-be assassin to feel justified in emulating Brutus. He said president Abraham Lincoln received similar treatment after the civil war before his assassination at the hands of John Wilkes Booth.

“Remember John Wilkes Booth,” Bannon said. “In the southern press, and in particular the Richmond papers, Caesar-ism, Lincoln is Caesar, Lincoln is taking your liberties. You fought this war but, even in losing the war, he’s going to take all your liberties and enslave you.”