Benjamin Netanyahu, his close associates and ministers are trying to use the attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania at the weekend to allege that there is incitement against him from the Israeli prime minister’s political opponents.
His weekly cabinet session on Sunday focused on this issue. Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs showed a compilation of critics of the government engaging in “incitement against the prime minister”, with various protesters and others heard describing Netanyahu as a “traitor”, “Satan” and an “enemy of the people”.
After discussions lasting about two hours, Netanyahu ordered another session on the subject to be held next week, in the presence of the law enforcement agencies, the government’s judicial advisor and internal security agency Shin Bet, in order to obtain data regarding the incitement allegations and the steps to be taken. The ministers linked the Trump assassination attempt to “incitement against the prime minister.”
“The attempted assassination of President Trump is a direct result of the disrupted campaign of incitement and delegitimisation against him,” wrote Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli on X. “In Israel, a shockingly identical campaign of incitement is being waged against Prime Minister Netanyahu and enjoys complete secrecy from the ombudsman and the law enforcement system solely because it is coming from the ‘right’.”
According to Justice Minister Yariv Levin during the cabinet session, “It is a miracle that what happened in the US has not happened here yet. It warned us of what could happen to us. The judiciary has abandoned the prime minister.”
Minister Miri Regev added that: “Incitement against the prime minister is accumulating. Democracy does not mean burning roads, nor does it mean putting up a picture of the prime minister with blood on his hands. We are facing an impossible reality, long after it is too late.”
Overlapping investigations will focus on the decisions the protection agency made before and immediately after bullets nearly hit former President Trump directly.
A Secret Service sniper team on watch before former President Donald J. Trump spoke at a rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday.Credit…Eric Lee/The New York Times
The building from which a gunman fired at former President Trump on Saturday was — at least in hindsight — an obvious security risk. Its rooftop offered an ideal sniper’s perch, with a close, elevated and unobstructed view of Mr. Trump.
But when the Secret Service drew up plans for Saturday’s rally, it left that building outside its security perimeter. Instead, local law enforcement officials in Butler, Pa., were given responsibility for that building, and no police officers were stationed on the roof itself.
The building, used as a warehouse by equipment manufacturer AGR International, has become a focal point of myriad investigations into the shooting that nearly felled a former American president, one that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas on Monday called a security failure.
The first question is why the building, about 450 feet from the stage, was left out of the perimeter. A Secret Service advance team visited the site and made the determination, and a supervisor would have had to approve it. The agency so far has not said who that was.
Video
“Look, they’re all pointing. Yeah, someone’s on top of the roof — look.” “There he is right there.” “Where?” “Right there, you see him? He’s laying down. You see him?” “Yeah, he’s laying down.” Trump: “Instead, I’m here with you, fighting like hell to get a sense —” “What’s happening?” Trump: “Because if we do, we’re going to make America better than ever before. We’re going to make it —” “Yeah, look, there he is. Trump: “Because we have millions —” “Officer.” Trump: “People in our country that shouldn’t be here. Dangerous people. Criminals, we have criminals.” “He’s on the roof. Right here, on the roof.” Trump: “It’s much tougher —” “On the roof.”
CreditCredit…@djlaughatme, via TikTok
That is just one of many unanswered questions. It is also unclear how the gunman got on the roof. People at the rally reported a suspicious person to local law enforcement. Quickly thereafter, rally visitors pointed out a man on the warehouse and the Secret Service shot and killed him after he began his assault.
The Secret Service has not said whether local law enforcement officers made service agents aware of a suspect or whether those officers were up to the task of dealing with the situation.
But the central question is whether the Secret Service failed at its most basic mission: keeping America’s leaders, including a former president, safe.
The security lapse is now the center of overlapping investigations, run by members of Congress and the Secret Service itself. On Monday, the leaders of the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee announced their own investigation into Saturday night’s shooting. Senators Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan, and Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, told the Secret Service in a letter that they wanted to know “how the suspect was able to get this close to a Secret Service protectee.”
“An incident like this cannot happen,” Mr. Mayorkas told CNN, adding, “When I say something like this cannot happen, we are speaking of a failure.”
Former federal law enforcement officials have said the Secret Service should have ensured the building was secured before the rally took place. The agency often relies on local law enforcement agencies for security at events.
The empty stage, after the scene of the shooting was evacuated.Credit…Eric Lee/The New York Times
One witness to Saturday’s shooting said that he had been allowed to walk into the same area as the warehouse without a security check.
Nathan Steadman said that he and his daughter stood under a nearby tree, where they had a clear view of Mr. Trump.
Within minutes of Mr. Trump taking the stage, Mr. Steadman said, he noticed people pointing at the building adjacent to the tree they were sitting under. He went to take a closer look, then saw the shooter crawl across on the roof and pull out the black barrel of a gun. Mr. Steadman turned toward his daughter, who was about 30 feet away, and screamed, “He’s got a gun!”
Mr. Steadman said the shooter then rolled over onto his back, turned the opposite direction, and fired twice in the direction away from where Mr. Trump was speaking. Mr. Steadman said he could not see who the gunman was shooting at in that direction. After those first shots, Mr. Steadman started to run, and then heard another volley of gunshots.
He said he was stunned that he had been allowed to get so close. “We never should have been allowed to go where we were,” Mr. Steadman said. “Why that building was not secured, it makes no sense.”
It is still not clear when and how the gunman got on the roof of the warehouse.
Anthony Guglielmi, a Secret Service spokesman, said on Sunday that local law enforcement had been notified of a suspicious person by rally visitors before the event started.
In an interview on Monday, he said that local police officers were in contact through radio with the agency before the shooting, including about the concerned warnings from the passers-by.
“There were radio communications between the Secret Service and local authorities acknowledging that the local police were dealing with an incident, an issue of a suspicious person,” he said.
Mr. Guglielmi declined to provide more details, citing the pending investigations.
At 6:03 p.m. local time, Mr. Trump took the stage at the Butler Farm Show grounds, clapping and gesturing to the crowds as the song “God Bless the U.S.A.” played. By 6:09 p.m., videos analyzed by The New York Times show people in attendance were pointing at the roof of the warehouse. Two minutes later, the first shots rang out.
In aerial videos taken after the shooting, a ladder can be seen propped up against the building from which the shooter fired. An employee for AGR who works in the warehouse told The Times that employees there had never seen this ladder near the building before. It is unclear if this ladder was placed by the shooter, or law enforcement responders responding to the shooting.
Secret Service agents flanking Mr. Trump as he took the stage on Saturday.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Former Secret Service agents said that the agency begins planning for campaign events like this one days before, dispatching its advance team to survey the site and meet the local authorities.
In Butler, the Secret Service first reached out to the local authorities about the rally on July 5 — eight days beforehand — and held its first meeting with them on July 8, according to Steve Bicehouse, the county emergency services director.
Donald Mihalek, a former Secret Service agent who worked in the protective details for President George W. Bush and former President Barack Obama, said the service’s standard procedure is to finalize with the local authorities a security plan before the event, known as a “preliminary survey.”
The survey is then approved by a Secret Service supervisor. Leadership of other local law enforcement agencies also can weigh in, Mr. Mihalek said.
“Supervisors get briefed on the plan and check to see if there’s any gaps and try to fill those gaps. And once that’s done it’s game time,” Mr. Mihalek said.
Mr. Mihalek said the service tends to be stretched thin during campaigns, when they must protect both the sitting president and candidates simultaneously, he said.
For events like this one, the Secret Service divides the security zone into three sections: an inner perimeter staffed by the Secret Service, a middle perimeter that includes checkpoints staffed by both the Secret Service and local law enforcement and an outer perimeter typically policed by local law enforcement.
In towns that have previously hosted Trump rallies, police chiefs said that the Secret Service has the ultimate authority over where the security perimeters are set.
Michael Caron, chief of the Windham, N.H., police department, said his team had worked three presidential events, including a Trump rally in 2023 at the town’s high school. For that event, Mr. Caron said the Secret Services advance team contacted him about a week ahead to inform him of the location. During the team’s visit, the Secret Service discussed the site with local law enforcement officials, as well as contingency plans and what kind of assets and manpower the agency could provide.
“If we don’t have enough, we amend the plan and do what we can,” Mr. Caron said.
Vern Thomas, a captain at the Derry police department, worked with the Secret Service for a rally held in New Hampshire in 2023. Mr. Thomas said his department’s responsibility was not protection of the dignitary. Rather, officers focused their efforts on the surrounding areas, traffic and crowd control.
“We will walk through with the Secret Service, but it’s up to them to decide what is a threat and what’s not,” Mr. Thomas said.
Mr. Guglielmi said that in Butler, local law enforcement would have been responsible for sweeping the warehouse before the event started.
Former law enforcement officials with ties to the Secret Service have said the agency should have ensured that the building where the would-be assassin was positioned was covered by the federal agency’s security perimeter — in other words, by the protectors of the former president.
Jeffrey James, a 22-year veteran of the Secret Service, said that counter-sniper teams are trained to shoot from 1,000 yards away — and to scan areas out to that distance. He said close-up scans are typically done by those on foot.
The gunman in Butler County was only roughly 200 yards from Secret Service snipers. Mr. James said that might have been one reason that counter-sniper teams were slow to detect him.
“As a sniper, you’re not expecting anybody to be that close,” Mr. James said.
Hamed Aleaziz, Campbell Robertson, Aric Toler and Peter Baker contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
It’s not easy being green, golden and male, according to a researcher’s observation of attempted frog cannibalism in Australia.
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After hearing a male frog’s song, a female frog thought he made a better meal than mate.CreditCredit…John Gould
It was nighttime on Kooragang Island north of Sydney, Australia, when the high-pitched shrieking started.
John Gould, an ecologist at the University of Newcastle conducting postdoctoral research on the declining population of green and golden bell frogs, raced toward the chilling sounds. There, in a pond he had been surveying, he spotted a scene that might have fit in an amphibian reboot of a Hannibal Lecter movie: A large female frog was chomping down on the hind leg of a male while slowly pulling him into a hole.
“The male frog was trying really hard to prevent this from happening,” Dr. Gould said.
The act of apparent cannibalism was the first between adults recorded in this species, and it gave Dr. Gould an appetite to learn more about the topic. Ultimately, he believes that when a female green and golden bell frog isn’t pleased by the song of a male, she might opt to turn him into a meal.
The females “are almost the ultimate predators for males,” Dr. Gould said, because their ears are perfectly in tune to the calling of their would-be beaus.
Cannibalism is well known among amphibians. But usually it is the youngest frogs, toads or salamanders that end up as dinner. The tadpoles of various species eat smaller tadpoles, for example, to get ahead in life. In some cases, this happens regularly between siblings. In others, adults sometimes cannibalize eggs or larvae — researchers recently discovered that hellbender fathers may eat their young when faced with suboptimal water conditions.
But adult-on-adult cannibalism has seldom been witnessed. For a study published last month in the journal Ecology and Evolution, Dr. Gould scoured the literature and found only a couple of examples, many in the lab, of adult frogs’ cannibalizing other adults. Almost all of these occurred in cases where the females were bigger than the males. In green and golden bell frogs, for example, females can grow to about 2.75 inches in length while males usually max out at less than 2 inches.
Dr. Gould believes that a female may be able to tell whether a male is better for mating or eating based on the strength of his calls. This means males take a huge risk when trying to attract mates.
“You’ve really got to give props to the male frogs out there, that they are putting their lives on the line to reproduce,” Dr. Gould said. “Maybe there’s a reason why, males and females, you don’t often find them next to each other in ponds.”
David Pfennig, a biology professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who was not involved in Dr. Gould’s research, called the study “a cool idea.” He has studied cannibalism among spadefoot toads — he has even seen tadpoles eat a toad that had already grown its legs.
But he would like to see more evidence of adult females cannibalizing males before agreeing that the phenomenon is more than occasional. While females may gain a clear benefit from cannibalizing males, there are also costs. Males might fight back, for example, or females could choke by biting off more than they could chew. Cannibalism can also spread disease in infected populations, Dr. Pfennig said.
Dr. Gould would also like to explore this idea more. And while tales of cannibalism don’t often have a happy ending, the male frog in Dr. Gould’s study lived to croak another day. After a struggle in which she pulled him deeper into the hole, he shrieked one more time and then managed to shake his leg free from the female’s mouth, hopping away to freedom.
Claims that President Biden and his allies ordered the attack on Donald J. Trump, or that Mr. Trump staged the attack, started quickly and spread fast across social media.
An hour after the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, a false narrative that President Biden and his allies engineered the attack began to take hold.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
Four minutes after the first report of a shooting at a rally for Donald J. Trump on Saturday, an anonymous account on X posted, “Joe Biden’s antifa shot President Trump.”
Within half an hour, another account on X with links to the QAnon conspiracy theory claimed without proof that the attack against Mr. Trump had most likely been ordered by the Central Intelligence Agency. Shortly after that, the far-right activist Laura Loomer posted on X about some recent remarks that President Biden made about Mr. Trump and then wrote, “They tried to kill Trump.” She did not provide evidence.
An hour later, with official details of the assassination attempt still scant, the narrative that President Biden and his allies had engineered the attack on Mr. Trump was being amplified by Republican lawmakers, Russian sympathizers and even a Brazilian political scion. By the time 24 hours had elapsed, posts about the unverified claim had been viewed and shared millions of times.
The idea that President Biden was behind the shooting of Mr. Trump was perhaps the most dominant conspiracy theory to emerge after the attack in Butler, Pa., on Saturday. The unproven conjecture surfaced almost instantly, hardened into a narrative and then catapulted between platforms large and small, even as information about the incident was limited. It was a striking example of the speed, scale and stickiness of rumors on social media, which often calcify into accepted truth far more efficiently than efforts to debunk or pleas for restraint.
That the subject this time was Mr. Trump, who frequently claims to be victimized by powerful forces while demonizing his enemies, only helped fuel the conspiracy theory. Its acceleration was also enabled by years of distrust stemming from tales of shadowy cabals of elites — which Mr. Trump has called “the deep state” — engaged in nefarious plots.
“The result was a perfect storm of righteous fury, blame-casting and conspiratorialism, at a moment when absolutely everyone was paying attention,” said Emerson Brooking, a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, who studies online ecosystems.
Baseless claims of a left-sanctioned hit job on Mr. Trump were only part of “a massive online spread of false claims” about the shooting, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit research group. References to false assassination narratives amassed more than 100 million views in 24 hours on X alone, the group said on Monday. That far exceeded the 35.1 million views for content related to false flag rumors and other conspiracy theories after a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022.
Other unsubstantiated theories about the shooting were fueled in part by left-wing accounts, including that Mr. Trump had deliberately staged the shooting to improve his election chances, slashing his ear with a hidden razor, popping a concealed blood capsule or otherwise fabricating a fake gunshot wound. Fingers were also pointed at other imagined culprits, including the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, Jews, trans people and Ukrainians.
But the unverified story line that President Biden and the Democrats were responsible stood out. According to the data firm PeakMetrics, the largest portion of discussion about the shooting on X and Telegram in the first seven hours — about 17 percent — involved expressions of solidarity and prayers for Mr. Trump. The next largest chunk, about 5 percent, accused Democrats of instigating the violence.
On July 12 and July 13 — the day of the shooting — there were 83,000 mentions on X of the phrase “inside job,” a 3,228 percent increase compared to the 48-hour period immediately prior, according to NewsGuard, which monitors online misinformation.
In a statement, a Biden campaign official said that after “this horrifying attack, anyone — especially elected officials with national platforms — politicizing this tragedy, spreading disinformation, and seeking to further divide Americans isn’t just unacceptable — it’s an abdication of leadership.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Adam Berinsky, a political science professor and misinformation expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the rapid spread of conspiracy theories online reflected widespread political division.
“It says a lot about our current political moment that the politicization at the extremes is the natural default,” he said.
The timeline of the conspiracy theory focused on Mr. Biden and the Democrats’ culpability was documented by think tanks, private companies that monitor misinformation and research groups, including Advance Democracy, the Anti-Defamation League, the Atlantic Council and Cyabra.
The first signs of that unproven idea emerged minutes after gunshots sounded at Mr. Trump’s rally on Saturday.
Some of the conservative voices who lodged the accusations against the president and other Democrats have long histories of aggressive rhetoric themselves. Ms. Greene repeatedly called for executing Democrats before she was elected to Congress. Mr. Collins has endorsed violence toward immigrants. Several, including Ms. Greene and Mr. Vance, are scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee this week.
Outside the convention on Monday, Senator Steve Daines, a Republican of Montana, said the speculation online was “not helpful,” adding that “I see no evidence of” Mr. Biden or other Democrats inciting violence.
The conspiracy theories have since continued evolving.
One strain focused on accusations that Mr. Biden’s team had rejected earlier requests to bolster Mr. Trump’s protective detail, which have been denied by a Secret Service spokesman.
Video clips of Candace Owens, a conservative political commentator, declaring that the shooter “was allowed to scale that roof” have also drawn hundreds of thousands of likes on TikTok and Instagram. Similar claims surfaced on the video platform Rumble.
By Monday, some social media accounts were hawking merchandise promoting the conspiracy theories. T-shirts with images of a bloodied Mr. Trump raising his fist, with the words “Not Today Deep State,” were on sale on Truth Social. On TikTok, baseball caps with “STAGED,” using the same image of Mr. Trump, were also on offer for $25.
Tiffany Hsu reports on misinformation and disinformation and its origins, movement and consequences. She has been a journalist for more than two decades.More about Tiffany Hsu
Sheera Frenkel is a reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering the ways technology impacts everyday lives with a focus on social media companies, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp.More about Sheera Frenkel
A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: First, Gunshots. Moments Later, Disinformation.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
New details and conflicting reports emerged on Tuesday about the security at the campaign rally where former President Donald J. Trump was shot. The Secret Service and local police agencies gave contradictory accounts, and leaders in Washington intensified their scrutiny of the failures in Mr. Trump’s protection — even after the Secret Service had beefed up security because of a potential Iranian assassination plot.
While the gunman was scaling the roof of a warehouse, three local law enforcement snipers were inside the same complex of buildings, monitoring the rally crowd. The director of the Secret Service said that the local forces were in the same building that the sniper fired from, but a local law enforcement official told The New York Times that was not the case, and that the officers were in an adjacent building.
The discrepancy in their accounts is just one unsettled element in the effort to determine how security broke down and allowed a 20-year-old to open fire in a barrage that left Mr. Trump hurt, one man dead and two other people gravely wounded. An analysis of three videos posted on social media show that Secret Service snipers were orienting themselves toward the gunman at the Trump rally about two minutes before shots were fired.
Here’s what else to know:
Secret Service fallout: The director of the Secret Service, Kimberly A. Cheatle, said she took responsibility for the events but did not plan to resign. Republicans have called her to testify in Congress next week about what happened on Saturday, including when local police told agents before Mr. Trump began speaking that they were investigating crowd reports of a suspicious person.
Trump calls widow: Mr. Trump offered his condolences in a phone call on Tuesday to the widow of Corey Comperatore, the man killed at the rally. On Monday, the widow, Helen Comperatore, told The New York Post that she had not heard from the former president, and that she had declined to speak with President Biden when he called her after the shooting.
Iran plot: U.S. intelligence agencies were tracking what they considered a potential Iranian assassination plot against Mr. Trump in the weeks before the shooting, several officials said on Tuesday, but they added that they did not believe the threat was related to Saturday’s assassination attempt. The intelligence had prompted the Secret Service to enhance security for the former president before his campaign rally in Butler.
The hunt for motive: Investigators have gained access to the phone of the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pa., the F.B.I. said on Monday. Technicians at the bureau’s lab in Quantico, Va., began sifting through the gunman’s texts, emails and other data, but did not immediately find clear evidence of a potential motive, or significant new details about possible connections to other people.
The would-be assassin: Classmates who attended Bethel Park High School described the gunman in interviews as a smart but solitary and quiet student who did not want attention, walking through the halls with his head down and rarely raising his hand in class. At lunch, “He sat by himself, by choice,” said his high school guidance counselor.
July 16, 2024, 6:53 p.m. ET
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Over the last several months, the gunman recieved multiple packages, including several that were marked “hazardous material,” according to a federal law enforcement memo obtained by The New York Times. Federal officials reviewed his shipping history after they discovered three explosive devices connected to him, the memo said. One device was found in his home, and two others were found in his car parked near the rally.
Pennsylvania State Troopers guarded the entrance to Butler Memorial Hospital in Butler, Pa., on Saturday.Credit…Don Wright/Associated Press
Karen Allen was at a bridal shower Saturday evening when she heard her phone ring and saw the familiar “No Caller ID” pop up on its screen. That usually meant an important call was coming from Butler Memorial Hospital, where she is the president.
This call would turn out to be particularly crucial.
Former President Donald J. Trump had just been shot at a rally only about 10 miles from the hospital, her chief medical officer informed her. He might be headed to Butler Memorial.
She jumped in her car and drove to the hospital, where a lockdown that would last three hours was already in place. Mr. Trump was indeed inside, and nobody — not even the hospital president — could go in or out.
Ms. Allen said she saw what she would estimate to be 40 or 50 law enforcement officers, including Secret Service agents, F.B.I. agents, Homeland Security agents and local and state police. Black SUVs dotted the parking lot.
“I had never seen anything like that at our hospital,” Ms. Allen said.
The hospital, which has 294 beds, was preparing for a shift change when Mr. Trump arrived, so the medical staff already inside stayed late to treat him while others treated newly arriving patients in the parking lot. The hospital was placed on diversion, meaning ambulances were barred from arriving, but patients could walk or be driven to the hospital, and security could arrange for medical equipment to be passed outside.
Dr. Dave Rottinghaus, an emergency room doctor at Butler Memorial, was one of the doctors treating people in the parking lot and said it was lucky that none of those patients had particularly serious conditions. The two people who were seriously wounded at the rally were taken to a different hospital, Allegheny General in Pittsburgh.
Neither Ms. Allen nor Dr. Rottinghaus would discuss Mr. Trump’s condition or treatment, and neither saw him throughout his time at the hospital.
“We heard that he was very friendly, very personable and shared his appreciation with the staff,” Ms. Allen said.
Both said they were saddened by the shooting, but also proud of their colleagues.
“It’s a high-pressure situation because it’s such a high-profile patient known throughout the world,” Dr. Rottinghaus said. “Our team really stepped up.”
A memorial for Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief, at the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Department.Credit…Kristian Thacker for The New York Times
The widow of the slain victim in Saturday’s shooting in Pennsylvania spoke with former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday, she said in a social media post.
“He was very kind and said he would continue to call me in the days and weeks ahead,” Helen Comperatore wrote, adding that she had told the former president that her husband, Corey Comperatore, “left this world a hero, and God welcomed him in.”
Mr. Comperatore’s sister, Kelly Comperatore Meeder, said members of the family had also spoken with representatives of the Trump campaign on Monday night. Ms. Comperatore Meeder said they had declined an invitation to speak with President Biden.
Mr. Comperatore, 50, was an ardent supporter of Mr. Trump and was eager on Saturday to see the former president for the first time in person. His sister said on Tuesday that her family believed that anger toward Mr. Trump was sown by President Biden and media outlets and had led to the fatal shooting.
“We’re not offering them anything,” Ms. Comperatore Meeder, 56, said of President Biden and his administration.
Mr. Comperatore was a father of two daughters and worked at a local plastics manufacturing company. He was also a longtime volunteer firefighter.
He had been so excited to attend his first rally for Mr. Trump that he woke up early to get in line, even after a late evening at a Chris Stapleton concert, Ms. Comperatore Meeder said. He texted their mother that he and his family had been able to switch seats to get closer to the president. Their mother, Ms. Comperatore Meeder said, wanted him to wave at the television cameras so she could watch him.
When the shooting occurred minutes into Mr. Trump’s speech, Mr. Comperatore dove to shield his family members from gunfire, according to Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.
Ms. Comperatore Meeder said she held media outlets “very much responsible” for her brother’s death because of the way she believes they have depicted Mr. Trump and his supporters.
“This was a 20-year-old boy on the roof,” Ms. Comperatore Meeder said. “He didn’t come back here from Vietnam. He didn’t see all of these terrible things. He just knows what he’s been hearing, what the media has portrayed this man to be, and it’s very unfair.”
Federal investigators are still trying to determine what drove the suspect, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, to attempt to assassinate Mr. Trump. They have been searching his online activity and his phone but have not yet found indications of strongly held political beliefs.
Mr. Comperatore’s widow, Helen Comperatore, did not respond to requests for an interview this week, but she told the New York Post on Monday that she was not interested in talking to President Biden because her husband was an ardent supporter of Mr. Trump.
“I didn’t talk to Biden,” she told the newspaper. “I didn’t want to talk to him. My husband was a devout Republican, and he would not have wanted me to talk to him.”
Ms. Comperatore, however, added that she didn’t have any ill will toward President Biden. “He didn’t do anything bad to my husband. A 20-year-old despicable kid did.”
When she was a child, Ms. Comperatore Meeder said, she nicknamed her younger brother “Bud,” because he was her buddy. She remembered him riding his dirt bike as a child in Sarver, their rural community outside of Pittsburgh. Except for one time that he was caught riding without a helmet, she said, he never got in trouble.
He married his high school sweetheart, Helen, and put down roots where he was raised.
“You couldn’t have paid him to move from his hometown,” she said. “This was his home. These were his people.”
When Ms. Comperatore Meeder moved about 25 minutes up the highway, her brother expressed disbelief that she would go “that far away.” Their entire family lives in the area, she said.
“There just isn’t an adjective strong enough for you all to understand exactly how shattered we are,” Ms. Comperatore Meeder said. “We’re shattered.”
Christina Morales contributed reporting.
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James Copenhaver, one of the people shot at the Trump rally, remains in “critical but stable condition,” his family said in a statement, and is recovering from “life-altering injuries” at Allegheny General Hospital. “The Copenhaver family would like to thank you for your continued thoughts, prayers and support as Jim and his family recover,” the statement said.
Credit…Allegheny Health Network
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Donald Trump made a call on Tuesday to the widow of Corey Comperatore, the man killed at the rally, according to his sister, Kelly Comperatore Meeder. On Monday, Helen Comperatore, the widow, told The New York Post that she had not heard from the former president, and that she had declined to speak with President Biden when he called her after the shooting.
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In a social media post shared with The New York Times by her sister-in-law, Helen Comperatore wrote that Trump had called to share his condolences. “He was very kind and said he would continue to call me in the days and weeks ahead,” she wrote, adding that she had told the former president that her husband “left this world a hero, and God welcomed him in.”
A video shows that one minute and 35 seconds before the shooting, a sniper team turns from facing south to north, toward the gunman.CreditCredit…Chelsie Lynn, via Instagram
Three videos posted on social media show that Secret Service snipers were orienting themselves toward the gunman at the Trump rally just under two minutes before shots were fired.
The first of the videos, taken by a rally attendee six minutes before shots were fired at former President Donald J. Trump, shows a Secret Service sniper and spotter behind the podium facing north, in the direction of the eventual shooter. The spotter is looking down toward Mr. Trump as he starts his speech.
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Trump: This is a big crowd. This is a big, big beautiful crowd.
CreditCredit…Chelsie Lynn, via Instagram
In a later video, which starts one minute and 58 seconds before shots were fired, the Secret Service team looks in the direction of the gunman through binoculars and a sniper scope. The rally attendee taking the video is heard saying, “Uh-oh, something’s going on.”
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Something’s going on. Something’s going on.
CreditCredit…Moshe Schwartz, via X
At the same time as this video was taken, another clip, shared on Facebook, shows attendees near the building where the gunman was positioned pointing law enforcement to someone on the roof.
A third video shows that one minute and 35 seconds before the shooting, while the Secret Service team’s attention is still focused toward the gunman, a second sniper team, positioned farther south, turns from facing south to north, toward the gunman. The short clip shows them turn with their weapons and crouch, and then it ends. Later, as shots were fired, this second Secret Service team is seen in another video in the same position, facing the gunman.
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Trump: Ensure we take back the White House. Because if we do, we’re going to make America better than ever before. We’re going to make it — and it’s not easy because we have millions and millions of people in our country that shouldn’t be here. In recorded history, we had the best border. In fact, if they could ever put up a chart, I don’t know if they could do it. Do you guys have access to that chart that I love so much? You don’t mind if I go off teleprompter, do you?
CreditCredit…Chelsie Lynn, via Instagram
A handful of rally attendees in the bleachers behind Mr. Trump are looking in the direction of the gunman and Secret Service snipers, with one man pointing toward them while talking to a person next to him.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi has said that local police officers radioed agents about a possible suspicious person before Mr. Trump came onstage. It’s unclear if the sniper teams were alerted.
Nailah Morgan contributed video production.
Members of local law enforcement were stationed in the same complex of buildings, upper right, that a gunman used to shoot at former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday. Credit…Kristian Thacker for The New York Times
While a gunman was climbing onto the roof of a warehouse less than 500 feet from where former President Donald J. Trump was speaking on Saturday, three law enforcement snipers were positioned inside the same complex of buildings, looking for anything amiss in the crowd.
The director of the Secret Service said the local forces were in the very same building, an account suggesting that the gunman was essentially on top of them. A local law enforcement official told The New York Times on Tuesday that was not the case, and that the local officers were in an adjacent building.
The discrepancy in their accounts is just one unsettled element in the effort to determine how security broke down and allowed a 20-year-old with a semiautomatic rifle to open fire in a rapid barrage that left Mr. Trump hurt, one man dead and two other people at the rally gravely wounded.
That this simple matter — whether law enforcement used the same building as the gunman — is still not easily resolved three days after the shooting shows that divisions are emerging among the law enforcement agencies after a would-be assassin came close to felling the Republican presidential nominee two days before the party’s convention.
The Secret Service director, Kimberly A. Cheatle, set off the back and forth in an interview with ABC News on Tuesday morning, her first public appearance since the assassination attempt. She said that local officers were inside the building used by the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pa., on Saturday evening. If so, that meant the gunman could have scaled a building even as snipers were stationed inside it.
“There was local police in that building — there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building,” Ms. Cheatle said.
Several local law enforcement agencies immediately put out statements saying they were not in the same building as the gunman. That led to the Secret Service making a statement on social media saying that it valued local law enforcement.
The response of local law enforcement before and during the shooting is being scrutinized.Credit…Eric Lee/The New York Times
While local law enforcement officers are used for additional security in an event like a campaign rally, it was the Secret Service’s job to determine the security plan and keep the protectee — in this case Mr. Trump — safe.
“The safety and security of a protectee falls on the shoulders of the Secret Service, period,” said John Cohen, a former law enforcement official who has worked with the Secret Service for years at both the state and federal levels.
“You have a former president who was close to being assassinated,” Mr. Cohen said. “There’s nothing more illustrative of the threat that we’re facing.”
Ms. Cheatle did say in the interview with ABC: “The buck stops with me. I’m the director of the Secret Service. It was unacceptable, and it’s something that shouldn’t happen again.”
Concerns about violence going into the 2024 election have been elevated as the country has seen a rise in threats of political violence — and in some cases actual attacks — on government officials, lawmakers and election workers.
On Tuesday, it was reported that the U.S. intelligence agencies were tracking what they considered a potential Iranian assassination plot against Mr. Trump before Saturday’s events, believed to be unrelated to Mr. Crooks. The intelligence had prompted the Secret Service to enhance security for the former president before Saturday’s outdoor rally, but not enough to stop a gunman from shooting at him.
At the heart of the dispute between the Secret Service and local agencies is a warren of warehouses, adjacent to the rally site, the Butler Farm Show grounds, and who was responsible for securing them.
The cluster of buildings, owned by the manufacturer AGR International, stood just north of the stage. The one closest to the stage was a one-floor building with a few windows and a sloped roof. Immediately behind it, and slightly offset, was a two-floor building with more windows. More warehouses lined up behind those.
The Secret Service had determined that the entire warehouse complex should be outside its most secure perimeter and thus delegated to local law enforcement to sweep and secure.
The gunman used the roof of the one-story building closest to the stage from which to fire his AR-15-type weapon.
But agencies are offering different accounts about which building local law enforcement used as a staging area and a perch for the three local officers called counter snipers. These officers were watching over the crowd as it gathered in the secure zone, a local law enforcement official, who was not authorized to give public statements, said in an interview with The Times.
It was the two-floor building, the one behind the warehouse used by the gunman, where those snipers were stationed by the windows, the official said.
The cluster of warehouse buildings where the gunman climbed to fire at Mr. Trump.Credit…Kristian Thacker for The New York Times
After the gunman made it to the roof of the one-story warehouse, a local officer was hoisted by another officer up the building’s wall and over the parapet, only to lock eyes on the gunman, Sheriff Michael T. Slupe of Butler County and a federal law enforcement official said.
The gunman pointed his weapon at the officer, who immediately retreated, the officials said. Shortly after, the gunman began firing at the rally, and a Secret Service sniper shot and killed him.
Jim Pasco, the executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, said he was frustrated with the narrative of the local police having responsibility in one place and the Secret Service in another.
“That’s nonsensical,” he said in an interview. Local law enforcement officers are additional resources that are vital to the Secret Service’s security mission, he said, likening the agency to the general contractor for presidential-related security events.
“It doesn’t matter who the subcontractors are,” he said. “Your name is on the truck.”
The Secret Service, in a social media post on Tuesday, said it was not criticizing its local law enforcement partners in Butler, calling the officers courageous. “Any news suggesting the Secret Service is blaming local law enforcement for Saturday’s incident is simply not true.”
One point of general agreement: No one from law enforcement was on the roof of any of the AGR warehouse buildings on Saturday.
In her interview with ABC, Ms. Cheatle said no officers were stationed atop the roof itself because it would not be safe.
“That building in particular has a sloped roof, at its highest point,” she said. “And so there’s a safety factor that would be considered there, that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof. So the decision was made to secure the building from inside.”
Former Secret Service agents said that agents do take up positions on roofs more steeply sloped than that one — indeed, Secret Service snipers were perched on a steeper roof behind Mr. Trump at the same event. But they said the agency also weighed safety and sometimes opted to block access to sloped roofs instead of putting someone on top.
“The bottom line is, the roof should have been posted and utilized as an observation post with police officers on it,” said Joe Funk, a former agent who protected Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
David A. Fahrenthold contributed reporting from Washington, and Kate Kelly from New York.
The aftermath of the assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump in Butler, Pa., on Saturday. The Secret Service increased security measures for the event based on intelligence about an Iranian threat.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times
U.S. intelligence agencies were tracking a potential Iranian assassination plot against former President Donald J. Trump in the weeks before a gunman opened fire last weekend, several officials said on Tuesday, but they added that they did not consider the threat related to the shooting that wounded Mr. Trump.
The intelligence prompted the Secret Service to enhance security for the former president before his outdoor campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, officials said. Yet whatever additional measures were taken did not stop a 20-year-old local man from clambering on top of a nearby warehouse roof to shoot at Mr. Trump, grazing his right ear and coming close to killing him.
The National Security Council contacted the Secret Service to be sure it was tracking the latest reporting and the agency shared the information with the head of Mr. Trump’s detail, according to a national security official, who like others shared sensitive information on condition of anonymity.
The Trump campaign was informed “in passing” by the Secret Service of a general uptick in threats against Mr. Trump but was not made aware of any specific dangers related to Iranian individuals or groups, according to a person briefed on the interactions between the campaign and Secret Service. It was not clear what, if anything, Mr. Trump himself was told.
The intelligence that prompted the warning was new, but consistent with previous threat information against lower-level current and former U.S. officials, according to officials informed about the matter. The intensifying campaign season, with increasingly frequent public rallies, offered more opportunities for an attack. Several national security officials said that although the threat was taken seriously, it did not appear from the intelligence to be fully developed.
Officials would not discuss how they had come by the information, but said that their conclusion was drawn from multiple strands of intelligence collected by multiple agencies that were not clear until they were all put together into a single picture. While Iran has targeted Americans before, trying to assassinate a former president now running for his old office would be a dramatic escalation that could risk war, so U.S. officials were trying to determine if it was merely aspirational or if there was a concrete plan.
Either way, several officials said the Secret Service had recently surged additional “resources and assets,” although they declined to describe specifically what changes had been made. The fact that security was already enhanced for the Butler rally because of the apparently unrelated threat will raise further questions about the failure of the Secret Service to protect Mr. Trump.
One U.S. official briefed on the intelligence was sharply critical of the Secret Service for allowing the Pennsylvania gunman to get so close, arguing that the agency’s knowledge of the Iranian threat should have prompted it to be more cautious. President Biden has already ordered an independent review of the security breakdown in Butler, and Congress is planning its own inquiries.
Authorities have identified Saturday’s gunman as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, from nearby Bethel Park, Pa., but have yet to publicly describe any motivation for the shooting. Mr. Crooks, who was killed by Secret Service snipers, was a registered Republican but once gave $15 to a progressive political group. He left no social media trail that revealed any strong political feelings. People who knew him said he kept to himself but was often bullied in high school.
The Iranian threat stemmed from Tehran’s longstanding desire to take revenge for the strike ordered by Mr. Trump in January 2020 that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian security and intelligence commander responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American troops in Iraq over the years. Reported Iranian threats against Trump administration officials like Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, and John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, resulted in government security details even after they left office.
Mr. Trump ordered a strike in 2020 that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian security and intelligence commander responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American troops in Iraq over the years. Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“As we have said many times, we have been tracking Iranian threats against former Trump administration officials for years, dating back to the last administration,” Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said in a statement. “These threats arise from Iran’s desire to seek revenge for the killing of Qassim Suleimani. We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority.”
Ms. Watson emphasized that the Iranian plot was separate from the Butler assassination attempt. “The investigation of Saturday’s attempted assassination of former President Trump is active and ongoing,” she said. “At this time, law enforcement has reported that their investigation has not identified ties between the shooter and any accomplice or co-conspirator, foreign or domestic.”
CNN previously reported on the Iran threat information. Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, hinted at a threat emanating from overseas during a briefing on Monday at the White House.
“The threat landscape is very dynamic, both domestically with the rise of domestic violent extremism,” he said, and “of course, we have seen the foreign threat environment increase as well.”
The Trump campaign declined to discuss the matter. “We do not comment on President Trump’s security detail,” the campaign said in a statement. “All questions should be directed to the United States Secret Service.”
Iran disputed reports of a plan to kill Mr. Trump. “These accusations are unsubstantiated and malicious,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations said in a statement. “From the perspective of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Trump is a criminal who must be prosecuted and punished in a court of law for ordering the assassination of General Suleimani. Iran has chosen the legal path to bring him to justice.”
Iran has made clear its desire for retribution one way or another. As the first anniversary of the Suleimani strike approached in early January 2021, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, warned publicly that “those who ordered the murder of General Suleimani” would “be punished.” Mr. Trump, about to enter his final weeks in office, told Florida friends at a holiday cocktail party that he was concerned that Iran would try to assassinate him.
In 2022, the Justice Department charged a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps with planning to assassinate Mr. Bolton, a plan thwarted by an informant who posed as a would-be assassin. Documents filed in court indicated that an Iranian operative had obtained details of Mr. Bolton’s movements that were not publicly known at the time.
Mr. Bolton was granted government security protection after the threat against him materialized, as was Mr. Pompeo. Others who have been reported to be targeted include Robert O’Brien, another former national security adviser to Mr. Trump; Mark T. Esper, the defense secretary at the time of the strike on Mr. Suleimani; Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., a former head of the U.S. Central Command who oversaw the operation; and Brian Hook, the State Department special envoy for Iran under Mr. Trump.
U.S. officials said Iran had never stopped trying to kill those it blamed for the Suleimani operation. As recently as February, the intelligence community noted in its annual threat assessment that Iran “will continue to directly threaten U.S. persons in the Middle East” and was trying to develop networks in the United States to attack officials “as retaliation for the killing” of Suleimani. It noted that Iran “previously has attempted to conduct lethal operations in the United States.”
Ms. Watson said on Tuesday that the government took these threats seriously. “As part of that comprehensive response,” she said, “we have invested extraordinary resources in developing additional information about these threats, disrupting individuals involved in these threats, enhancing the protective arrangements of potential targets of these threats, engaging with foreign partners and directly warning Iran.”
David E. Sanger, Maggie Haberman and Farnaz Fassihi contributed reporting.
July 16, 2024, 3:06 p.m. ET
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A Secret Service briefing planned today for the House Oversight Committee has apparently been called off. The Secret Service had promised to privately brief members about security failures that led to the Trump shooting, but the Department of Homeland Security “has since refused to confirm a briefing time,” a spokeswoman for the committee said. A public hearing is planned for next week.
July 16, 2024, 1:29 p.m. ET
July 16, 2024, 1:29 p.m. ET
Kassie Bracken and Alexandra Eaton
Speaking in Milwaukee on behalf of the Biden campaign, Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, said the attack on Donald Trump affirmed his concerns about political violence. He hoped leaders would see it as “pivot point” to bring Americans together.
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CreditCredit…Noah Throop and Mark Boyer/The New York Times
Rep. Mark E. Green, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, at a hearing in January.Credit…Kenny Holston/The New York Times
A key congressional committee has summoned the leaders of three federal security agencies to Capitol Hill next week to answer questions about law enforcement failures related to the assassination attempt against former President Donald J. Trump.
Representative Mark E. Green, Republican of Tennessee and the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, invited Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary; Christopher Wray, the FB.I. director; and Kimberly Cheatle, the Secret Service director, to testify before his panel on Tuesday.
Ms. Cheatle also is scheduled to testify on Monday before the House Oversight Committee.
“The American people want answers on what happened Saturday in Pennsylvania,” Mr. Green said in a statement, adding: “It is imperative that we partner to understand what went wrong, and how Congress can work with the departments and agencies to ensure this never happens again.”
Mr. Green has demanded that the Secret Service turn over documents to his committee by Friday. Those include the agency’s security plan for the campaign rally in Butler, Pa., where a gunman opened fire, and all documents and communications — including text messages and emails — among federal law enforcement regarding Mr. Trump’s security.
Mr. Green spoke with Ms. Cheatle on Sunday, and with Robert Wells, the F.B.I. executive assistant director, on Monday, according to his office.
At least three congressional committees said they had begun preliminary inquiries about how the gunman got within 500 feet of Mr. Trump, and some lawmakers have called for an independent commission to oversee them.
In the Senate, the Homeland Security Committee has announced a bipartisan inquiry.
The gunman grew up in Bethel Park, Pa., a suburb of Pittsburgh.Credit…Kristian Thacker for The New York Times
Neighbors on the tree-lined street where Thomas Crooks and his family lived in Bethel Park, Pa., said they were shocked that their quiet neighborhood had become the epicenter of the biggest political story in the country.
The neighborhood was largely closed off by the police in the immediate aftermath of the political rally on Saturday, where Mr. Crooks opened fire from a rooftop, injuring former President Donald J. Trump, killing a spectator and injuring two others.
On Monday, the streets were open to the public again, and neighbors described the chaos of the past few days and their impressions of the 20-year-old man who had lived in their midst. He was killed by Secret Service counter snipers after opening fire on Mr. Trump.
Kelly Little, 38, who moved in across the street from the Crooks in 2018, said the family was polite, but not overly friendly. “I’ve never had a conversation with them,” she said. “They seem normal. They wave, they smile. They seemed like normal, quiet people.”
Ms. Little’s son, Liam Campbell, 17, said he often rode the bus with Mr. Crooks.
“He didn’t speak to anyone, and no one spoke to him,” he said. “He seemed like the kind of person who didn’t like to start conversations with people he didn’t know. He seemed nervous.”
In recent months, several neighbors said, they had seen Mr. Crooks taking long walks around the neighborhood. He often looked down while he listened to music through headphones, Liam remembered. “The kid walked around a lot by himself,” he said.
Residents said the normally quiet neighborhood became a hub of activity after the shooting on Saturday. Liam said that around 10:30 or 11 p.m. on Saturday, the State Police ordered his family to evacuate for about 24 hours — a time when F.B.I. officials have said that officers were searching the Crooks house for a possible explosive device, among other things.
The gear of Corey Comperatore hangs outside the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Department.Credit…Kristian Thacker for The New York Times
The funeral for Corey Comperatore, the father of two and volunteer firefighter killed in the shooting at the Trump rally in Butler, Pa., will take place on Friday at the church where he was a longtime member.
The Rev. Jonathan Fehl announced the plans in an email to the congregation of Cabot Church, which Mr. Comperatore attended, not far from his home in Sarver, Pa.
Mr. Fehl wrote that Mr. Comperatore had served his family, church, community and country “with a heart of service to the Lord.”
“Whether it was taking part in a small group, serving on the trustees or lending his expertise to a building project, he was constantly helping the people around him,” he wrote.
Corey ComperatoreCredit…Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Department, via Reuters
Mr. Comperatore, 50, died at the rally on Saturday after a gunman on a rooftop attempted to assassinate former President Donald J. Trump. In Mr. Comperatore’s final moments, he dove to shield his family members who had accompanied him to the rally, according to Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.
The funeral arrangements will include a public visitation on Thursday in Freeport, Pa. Mr. Fehl told congregants to “expect large crowds, security and media.”
The funeral on Friday morning will be a private event for family and friends. It will be followed by a procession of up to 500 fire trucks heading toward the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company, where Mr. Comperatore served for decades, including as chief in the early 2000s.
Friends said that Mr. Comperatore was devoted to his wife, Helen, and daughters, Allyson, 27, and Kaylee, 24. He loved to fish and took meticulous care of his cars, boat and lawn. His two Dobermans, Ivan and Negan, were well trained, a neighbor said. The most recent Cabot Church newsletter celebrated his birthday and wedding anniversary, both in June.
Mr. Comperatore worked as a project and tooling engineer at JSP, a plastics manufacturing company, and, according to his obituary, served in the U.S. Army Reserves.
“His courage was not the loud and boisterous kind; it was the courage of quiet resilience, the strength to be vulnerable and the bravery to lead with love,” his obituary said.
Elizabeth Dias contributed reporting.
July 16, 2024, 11:34 a.m. ET
July 16, 2024, 11:34 a.m. ET
New details are emerging about the frenzied effort to identify the gunman after he was killed by Secret Service counter snipers on Saturday. First responders found no identification on his body, so they sent the serial number on his rifle to the A.T.F., which traced the weapon to his father in about 20 minutes, according to law enforcement officials and an A.T.F. timeline of events.
July 16, 2024, 11:35 a.m. ET
July 16, 2024, 11:35 a.m. ET
After retrieving the names of immediate family members, agents found a photograph online that matched the face of the dead gunman. It all took about 30 minutes, according to the officials and the A.T.F. timeline.
Bethel Park High School, with its flag at half-staff.Credit…Kristian Thacker for The New York Times
Two years before Thomas Crooks became a would-be assassin, he regularly spent his lunch hour sitting alone in the cafeteria of his Bethel Park High School playing on his phone. But he wasn’t sulking about it, said a school counselor who knew him: He preferred it that way.
“He sat by himself, by choice,” said Jim Knapp, his former guidance counselor, who in an interview recalled checking in with Mr. Crooks nearly every day during lunch hour. “It got to be where we would joke about it, tongue-in-cheek, because he knew that I would bother him — and he didn’t want to be bothered because he enjoyed sitting by himself.”
Since Mr. Crooks’s attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump, a number of his classmates and others who encountered him have portrayed him as a recluse who shied away from attention, and was taunted by other students over the camouflage outfits he sometimes wore and his solitary demeanor.
But Mr. Knapp, who counseled Mr. Crooks during his entire four years at the school and had become acquainted with his family, suggested that the emerging portrait didn’t tell the whole story of Mr. Crooks.
“This kid was not a monster,” said Mr. Knapp, a 30-year veteran of the school who retired in 2022, around the time Mr. Crooks graduated. “This kid was not a bad kid. Something snapped. Something evil in the world happened.”
He said Mr. Crooks was a good student who took challenging classes, was well-liked by teachers and stayed out of trouble. He pushed back on claims by other students that Mr. Crooks was a loner, saying he had a small group of friends; they just did not share the same lunch period.
Mr. Knapp said the Bethel Park School District was particularly active about addressing mental health, making therapists and social workers accessible to students.
“In Thomas’s case, he really never sought them out,” Mr. Knapp said, “and he didn’t have any reason to at that time because he really was doing well in school, he wasn’t being picked on, he wasn’t being bullied. He just went about it his way and did things the way he wanted to do them.”
Mr. Knapp said he was shocked when he learned what had happened. He expressed sadness over the violence that left one spectator at the rally dead and two others seriously injured: “I feel terrible for those families. I feel terrible for Thomas’s family. And I attribute it all to evil in the world.”
Mr. Knapp said he did not have any insights into Mr. Crooks’ political leanings; the subject never came up in conversations, and he never made it obvious.
“Was he right wing, left wing? Don’t know that at all,” he said.
The AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle used in the shooting was purchased in 2013 by the gunman’s father — who owns more than a dozen firearms of different types, according to law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an investigation that is continuing.
July 16, 2024, 10:23 a.m. ET
July 16, 2024, 10:23 a.m. ET
The gunman bought about 50 rounds of ammunition just prior to the shooting, they said.
U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle speaking during a Republican National Convention security news conference in June.Credit…Morry Gash/Associated Press
The Secret Service director, Kimberly A. Cheatle, said in an interview with ABC News that local police officers were inside the building used by a gunman to fire on former President Trump in Butler, Pa., on Saturday evening.
“There was local police in that building — there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building,” Ms. Cheatle said.
At outdoor events like this, the Secret Service sets both an inner perimeter — to be controlled by the agency itself — and an outer area patrolled by local police. At this event, the Secret Service left the warehouse in the outer perimeter. Former Secret Service agents have questioned that decision, as the building offered an ideal perch for a sniper: an elevated rooftop within rifle range of the former president. While local law enforcement officers are used for additional security in an event like a campaign rally, the Secret Service is the agency charged first and foremost with protecting America’s leaders, including former presidents.
Videos from the scene and accounts from eyewitnesses show members of the crowd noticed the gunman on the roof and notified police officers before he fired. In the interview with ABC, Ms. Cheatle said there was only “a very short period of time” between those reports and when the gunman fired.
“I don’t have all the details yet, but it was a very short period of time,” she said. “Seeking that person out, finding them, identifying them, and eventually neutralizing them took place in a very short period of time, and it makes it very difficult.”
The warehouse building was a staging area for local law enforcement, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi acknowledged in a separate interview.
Ms. Cheatle, who was appointed by President Biden in 2022, said she took responsibility for Saturday night’s events. “The buck stops with me,” she said. “I am the director of the Secret Service.” She said she did not plan to resign.
The Secret Service has acknowledged that before Trump went onstage, local officers were searching for a “suspicious” man who had been flagged by passers-by and that the Secret Service was notified of that hunt. The agency has not said how much earlier that search went on or when the agency was notified of it.
BETHEL PARK, Pa. (AP) — After three days, an enigmatic portrait emerged of the 20-year-old man who came close to killing former President Donald Trump with a high-velocity bullet: He was an intelligent loner with few friends, an apparently thin social media footprint and no hints of strong political beliefs that would suggest a motive for an attempted assassination.
Even after the FBI cracked into Thomas Matthew Crooks’ cellphone, scoured his computer, home and car, and interviewed more than 100 people, the mystery of why he opened fire on Trump’s rally Saturday, a bullet grazing the GOP nominee’s ear, remained as elusive as the moment it happened.
“He sat by himself, didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t even try to make conversation,” said 17-year-old Liam Campbell, echoing the comments of classmates who remembered the shooter in this quiet community outside of Pittsburgh. “He was an odd kid,” but nothing about him seemed dangerous, he added. “Just a normal person who seemed like he didn’t like talking to people.”
So far, there has been no public disclosure the shooter left any writings, suicide note, social media screed or any other indicator explaining his reasons for targeting Trump. A law enforcement official briefed on the ongoing investigation told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that Crooks’ phone had not immediately yielded any meaningful clues related to motive, or whether he acted alone or with others.
Crooks’ political leanings were also hazy. Crooks was registered as a Republican in Pennsylvania, but federal campaign finance reports also show he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on Jan. 20, 2021, the day Democratic President Joe Biden was sworn into office.
The absence of a satisfactory explanation has led Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to recount the lengthy federal investigation into the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, the deadliest such attack in the nation’s history. That probe closed after 17 months without finding any motive for what drove the 64-year-old gunman to spray more than 1,000 rounds into a crowd of concertgoers other than to “attain a certain degree of infamy.”
Crooks, with a slight build, wire-rimmed glasses and thin hair parted in the middle, went by “Tom.” He was described by classmates at Bethel Park High School as smart but standoffish, often seen wearing headphones and preferring to sit alone at lunch looking at his phone. Some said he was often mocked by other students for the clothes he wore, which included hunting outfits, and for continuing to wear a mask after the COVID pandemic was over.
“He was bullied almost every day,” said classmate Jason Kohler. “He was just an outcast.”
After graduating from high school in 2022, Crooks went on to the Community College of Allegheny County, earning an associate’s degree with honors in engineering science in May. He also worked at a nursing home as a dietary aide.
A 1997 Secret Service study into those who had attempted assassinations since 1949 found there was no single indicator that a person might seek to take the life of a public figure. However, two-thirds of all attackers were described as “social isolates.”
Like Crooks, few had any history of violent crime or criminal records. Most attackers also had histories of handling weapons, but no formal weapons or military training, according to the study.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump gestures while surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents as he is helped off the stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Law enforcement officers gather at campaign rally site for Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is empty Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
As a freshman, Crooks had tried out for his high school rifle team but was rejected for poor marksmanship, the AP previously reported. Through his family, he was a member of the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club, a shooting range about 11 miles (17 kilometers) east of Bethel Park.
“We know very little about him,” club president Bill Sellitto told the AP. “That was a terrible, terrible thing that happened Saturday — that’s not what we’re about by any means.”
The club has an outdoor range for high-powered rifles with targets set at distances of up to 170 meters (187 yards).
Crooks was well within that range when he opened fire on Trump Saturday from about 135 meters (147 yards) from where Trump was speaking, unleashing two quick volleys of rounds at the former president with an AR-15 style rifle.
His father, Matthew Crooks, bought the gun in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, in 2013 from Gander Mountain, a retail outdoors chain.
The day before the shooting, Thomas Crooks went to the sportsman’s club and practiced on the rifle range, according to a federal intelligence briefing obtained by the AP. On the day of the attack, he purchased 50 rounds of 5.56mm ammo for his rifle from a local gun shop and drove alone to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the Trump rally.
He parked at a gas station lot about a third of a mile from the event. He wore a gray T-shirt with the logo of a popular YouTube channel dedicated to firearms, camo shorts and a black belt.
Witnesses and law enforcement officials say Crooks walked around for at least a half-hour before climbing onto the roof of a building adjacent to the Butler Farm Show grounds, where Trump was speaking. As spectators screamed for police to respond, Crooks opened fire, letting loose two quick bursts. A Secret Service counter sniper fired back within about 15 seconds, killing Crooks with a shot to the head.
Trump said this week that one bullet clipped his right ear, and that only a last-second turn of his head kept him from potentially being mortally wounded. One of the bullets aimed toward Trump killed 50-year-old firefighter Corey Comperatore, a spectator who was in the bleachers. Two others were seriously wounded.
Without clear insight into what drove Crooks, many on both sides of the American political divide tried to fill the void with their own partisan assumptions, evidence-free speculations and conspiracy theories in the days since the shooting.
Some Republicans have pointed at Democrats for labeling Trump a threat to democracy. Democrats, in turn, pointed to Crooks’ GOP registration and to Trump’s own long history of provocative rhetoric, including his continued praise of the Jan. 6 rioters.
Access to the Crooks home remained blocked by yellow police tape, with officers keeping watch and preventing reporters from approaching.
Melanie Maxwell, who lives in the neighborhood, was dropping off “Trump 2024” lawn signs at another neighbor’s home.
Like the others, she didn’t know the Crooks family well. She said she was appalled by the assault and said any security lapses should be fully investigated.
“The hand of God protected President Trump,” she said.
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Biesecker reported from Washington, Bellisle from Seattle and Mustian from New York. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker and Colleen Long in Washington, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Julie Smyth, Lindsey Bahr, Mark Scolforo, and Joshua Bickel in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, Michael R. Sisak in Butler, Pennsylvania, Randy Herschaft in New York, Michael Balsamo in Chicago and Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland, contributed to this report.
The Associated Press; Photograph by Doug Mills/The New York Times
Former President Donald J. Trump was whisked off the stage at his rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday after gunshots were fired toward the area where he was speaking. Mr. Trump could be seen bleeding from his right ear, and officials said that the shooting was being investigated as an assassination attempt.
By The New York Times; Aerial image by Doral Chenoweth/USA TODAY NETWORK, via Reuters
The rally took place on the grounds of the Butler Farm Show in western Pennsylvania, about 35 miles north of Pittsburgh. On Saturday afternoon, tens of thousands of rally attendees started trickling in after the doors opened at 1 p.m.
Mr. Trump was set to begin speaking at 5 p.m., but didn’t appear onstage until about an hour later. Here’s how the next 11 minutes unfolded based on footage of the rally.
6:03 p.m. Mr. Trump starts to take the stage, clapping and pointing to the crowd as the song “God Bless the U.S.A.” plays.
6:05 p.m. As the song concludes, Mr. Trump approaches the lectern and begins speaking. He spends the first six minutes talking about President Biden and the state of the country before focusing on immigration.
6:11 p.m. Mr. Trump turns to his right and gestures toward a screen with a chart showing statistics on border crossings. He faces north toward a set of bleachers filled with rally attendees. Behind the bleachers is a group of buildings around 400 feet away from the stage.
Eric Lee/The New York Times
Around the same time, several rally attendees notice a man with a gun on the roof of one of the nearby buildings. In a video posted on social media, one attendee can be heard yelling: “He’s on the roof. He’s got a gun!”
Seconds later A gunshot is heard, and Mr. Trump stops midsentence and flinches. He reaches for his right ear, as another two shots are quickly fired, and ducks behind the lectern. One male Secret Service agent is heard yelling, “Get down, get down, get down, get down!”
Secret Service agents surround Mr. Trump as a burst of five more shots is fired. Members of the crowd are panicking, screaming and crouching down. More security personnel run onto the stage, including several heavily armed law enforcement agents.
About 42 seconds after shooting began Agents stay crouched over Mr. Trump until an agent can be heard saying, “Shooter down.” The Secret Service confirmed later in a statement that its “personnel neutralized the shooter.”
The crowd claps and cheers as agents help Mr. Trump stand up. When he gets up, streaks of blood are visible on his right ear and across his face. His security begins to usher him toward the stairs, but before leaving the stage Mr. Trump pauses and raises his fist, pumping it in the air and appearing to mouth the words “Fight! Fight! Fight!” The crowd breaks into a chant of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Two minutes after the shooting After agents escort Mr. Trump off the stage, he pumps his fist in the air one last time before he is led into a black S.U.V.
Eric Lee/The New York Times
A spectator who had been standing just outside the grounds said in an interview with the BBC that a few minutes into Mr. Trump’s speech, he noticed that someone was “bear-crawling up the roof,” clearly armed with a rifle, and that he tried to notify the police. Law enforcement officials later said that the gunman had opened fire from an elevated position outside the rally’s security perimeter.
After the shooting, the gunman’s body was seen on the rooftop of one of the buildings to Mr. Trump’s right. An AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle was recovered at the scene, according to law enforcement officials.
“I was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear,” Mr. Trump said in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform. “I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin.”
Shortly after the shooting, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign said that the former president was “fine.” Mr. Trump will still attend the Republican National Convention this week, his advisers said in a statement.
One spectator at the rally, Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter, was shot and killed. Two others were critically injured.
Photographs by Eric Lee and Doug Mills/The New York Times
The crowd at the convention cheered Trump, whose ear was bandaged after it was hit by a bullet on Saturday.
Details are emerging about the moments that led up to the shooting. People alerted law enforcement to the gunman on the roof of a building about 410 feet away from the stage at least two minutes before the first shot was fired at Trump, video analyzed by CBS News shows.
A local law enforcement officer with direct knowledge of the incident told CBS News three snipers were stationed inside the building the shooter used in his attack. The operations plan had them stationed inside the building looking out windows toward the rally.
One of the snipers inside saw the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, outside and looking up at the roof, observing the building and disappearing, according to the officer. Crooks came back, sat down and looked at his phone. At that point, one of the snipers took a picture of him. Crooks took out a rangefinder and the sniper radioed to the command post. Crooks disappeared again and then came back a third time with a backpack. The snipers called in with information that he had a backpack and said he was walking toward the back of the building.
Officers believe that Crooks might have used an air conditioning unit to get on top of the roof. By the time other officers came for backup, he had climbed on top of the building and was positioned above and behind the snipers inside the building, the officer said.
Two other officers who heard the sniper’s call tried to get onto the roof. State police started rushing to the scene, but by that time, a Secret Service sniper had already killed Crooks, the officer said.
The FBI is investigating whether the shooter was a politically motivated homegrown domestic violent extremist, and investigators are still combing through his background. Justice Department officials told reporters that investigators have the shooter’s phone and were examining it at the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia.
The recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump has reignited discussions about conspiracy theories and the psychology behind them.
Reports indicate that a shooter fired at Trump from about 400 feet away with an AR-style weapon. Fortunately, the attempt failed. Immediately after, the press and Trump himself claimed that he was shot; a bullet pierced his right ear.
One can understand why they initially thought this—there were shots, people were killed, Trump was injured—but it has led to confusion and speculation because, while the video and photos clearly show blood around his ear, his ear remained completely intact—not even a hole. If a bullet from an “AR-style” weapon had made any contact at all, it likely would have caused a rather visible wound, perhaps even tearing the ear off.
Source: David Kyle Johnson, Screenshot
But some authorities, such as the Pennsylvania police, are now saying that Trump was hit by glass (perhaps from a shattered teleprompter), rather than a bullet. Whether it be from a teleprompter or something else (I was unable to confirm exactly where they were all located, or whether one was damaged), the hypothesis that Trump was hit by glass, or some other kind of shrapnel, aligns much better with the nature of the wound Trump received.
Yet some are dismissing this as a conspiracy theory, simply because it contradicts the “standard story.” This misunderstands what conspiracy theories are. To explain why, let’s delve into the psychology of conspiratorial thinking, and clarify why the glass /shrapnel hypothesis is more plausible.
The Nature of Conspiracy Theories
Conspiracy theories propose, without evidence, secret plots by powerful groups working behind the scenes. They are often fueled by “proportionality bias,” a cognitive bias that makes us think big events must have big causes and explain complex or traumatic events with grandiose stories that actually have straightforward explanations.
The human brain is also wired to seek patterns and connections, especially in times of uncertainty or fear. This tendency can lead to the endorsement of conspiratorial explanations, which offer a sense of control and understanding. If the attempt on Trump’s life had been successful, it’s likely conspiracy theories would have been even more widespread.
But something else that has fueled conspiracy theories in this instance is the fact that the initial claim that a bullet hit him directly conflicts with the physical evidence. If a bullet from an AR-style weapon had hit him at all, it likely would have torn his ear completely off. But the video and photos taken right after the shoot show his ear to be intact, with not even a hole. This has made some suggest that the whole thing was faked, a hoax, as in the below example:
“A Republican operative, willing to die for the cause, shot random bullets into the crowd; Trump (knowing it was coming) pretended to be shot, ducked down, applied a blood pack, and then remerged for photo ops, knowing there was no real danger.”
Notice that this is a conspiracy; it invokes secret plots by powerful groups working behind the scenes. But the idea that, instead, he was hit by glass or shrapnel from a shot and shattered teleprompter (or something else) is simply an alternative explanation for the wound based on available evidence. Some people are calling this a conspiracy, but by definition, it is not, since it does not involve secret plots or hidden agendas. In fact, it squelches conspiracy theories because it accounts for a piece of evidence—Trump’s intact ear—that is supposedly in favor of the conspiracy theory without appealing to secret plots and powerful groups.
Initial Reporting and Its Flaws
The reason that people are calling the glass/shrapnel hypothesis a conspiracy is because it supposedly contradicts the “official” narrative—that Trump was shot by a bullet—and that is something that conspiracy theories often do: contradict the official narrative. But there actually is no official narrative yet; the investigation into the attack is not complete. All there is right now is initial reporting and personal accounts, both of which psychologists know are notoriously unreliable.
It would be one thing if the investigation was already complete, and it provided the evidence to conclude that Trump actually was struck by a bullet, and people kept insisting that it was only glass—and suggested a giant cover-up was taking place to hide the truth. That would be a conspiracy theory. But right now, we only have initial reports, and initial reports of significant events are often wrong because they are based on incomplete information and hastily gathered eyewitness accounts.
In the chaos and urgency of such moments, details can be misinterpreted, and accurate verification is challenging. Human memory is fallible, especially under stress, leading to errors and inconsistencies. Media outlets, eager to break news quickly, may prioritize speed over accuracy, further contributing to the spread of incorrect initial information.
Trump can certainly be forgiven for thinking, in the heat of the moment, that he was shot; shots were fired, people were injured and killed, and he was wounded. So can all the rest of us. But if, after careful investigation, it is found that this is not the case, one should admit what the evidence reveals. (Of course, if the glass/shrapnel hypothesis is considered, but careful investigation reveals that it is a bullet wound, one should also admit what the evidence reveals.)
The Role of Confirmation Bias
Confirmation bias also plays a crucial role in the persistence of conspiracy theories. People tend to favor information that confirms their preexisting beliefs and dismiss evidence that contradicts them.
For Trump supporters, the narrative of a direct bullet hit may align with a heroic or victimized image of Trump. Conversely, opponents might prefer theories that undermine his claims, such as the idea that he staged the incident.
So, ironically, the glass/shrapnel hypothesis, while it currently appears more plausible, may actually be rejected by both sides because it does not fit neatly into either narrative. The glass/shrapnel hypothesis does not suggest that the whole event was staged—only that there was no near miss, all of the shots fired were off target, and Trump was simply hit by glass/shrapnel caused by one of the shots. Neither does it suggest that Trump miraculously survived direct contact with a bullet. We may like one of these notions better than the other, but as logical thinkers, we must simply follow the evidence where it leads.
The Danger of Mislabeling
Mislabeling rational explanations as conspiracy theories can be dangerous. It fosters a culture of skepticism towards legitimate evidence and encourages the spread of misinformation. By understanding the difference between conspiratorial thinking and logical deduction, we can promote a more rational discourse.
In the Trump incident, acknowledging the glass/shrapnel hypothesis as a plausible explanation can be used to help debunk more far-fetched theories, such as the idea that Trump staged the entire event. These more extreme theories gain traction when initial reports are debunked without a rational alternative being presented.
