Former President Donald Trump targeted in assassination attempt during campaign rally

Butler, Pennsylvania, 6:08 p.m. Former U.S. President Donald Trump is shot at during a rally. Between shock and horror, the story of a few minutes of extreme violence, broadcast live around the world.

The sun beats down on Butler, in western Pennsylvania, on this late afternoon, Saturday, July 13. The crowd awaits the arrival of its champion. Donald Trump is holding his last rally before the Republican convention, during which he will officially be nominated as the presidential candidate. He has “maybe an hour late” on the program, says Doug Mills, a veteran photographer for the New York Times. “It’s a typical, classic meeting”continues the photographer, seated with his colleagues at the foot of the stage.

Ben Macer has taken up position along the fence to watch the Republican presidential candidate speak. In all the excitement, Ben Macer can see from his spot, “a guy moving from one roof to another”he tells a KDKA journalist. Alert, he reports this strange behavior to a police officer.

Wearing a red “MAGA” cap, the former American president begins his anti-immigration speech in front of television cameras and hundreds of supporters who have come to listen to him. “Look what just happened…”he begins, at 6:08 p.m., when the first shots ring out, a few crackles. The Republican candidate interrupts his speech, puts his hand to his right ear, while the cries resound: “Down !” Photographer Doug Mills, from New York Timescaptures the trajectory of a bullet that grazes the former head of state’s head at that precise moment.

Erin Autenreith, 66, sits “right in front of him”. She told AFP that she initially believed in “a 4th of July thing [la fête nationale américaine]bang, bang, bang”. “But when they all jumped on the stage, surrounded him and knocked him down, that’s when we realized it was really gunfire.”

A brief hesitation, then cries of terror seize the audience. The former president is hit, he curls up behind his lectern, while the members of the Secret Service rush onto the platform to form a shell around him. “I immediately knew something was wrong, I heard a whistle, gunshots, and I immediately felt the bullet go through the skin”Donald Trump recounts a few moments later on his social network Truth Social. A helmeted and heavily armed sniper also comes on stage. More gunshots are heard. In the stands, spectators throw themselves to the ground, others crouch down, stunned. Seventeen seconds after the first shots, a final one rang out. The Secret Service members, sunglasses on their noses, must now extract the injured candidate.

Around the candidate, someone shouts “shooter on the ground”A Secret Service sniper shot the man lying on the roof of a building near the rally area. In a chaotic sequence of gunfire, the six men and women surrounding the septuagenarian urged him to leave the stage. “Let me take my shoes, let me take my shoes”Donald Trump is then offended, visibly confused. “I protect you, sir, I protect you, sir”one of the agents replied, trying to be reassuring, according to the CNN broadcast.

The former president then turns to the audience and shouts “Fight”, raising a fist. Two streams of blood run down his face. A moment of history, captured by press photographers. The former president leaves the stage to patriotic cries of encouragement “USA, USA, USA”. Other supporters kneel and pray, AFP reports. “When they picked him up, I felt like they wanted to evacuate him as quickly as possible and he wanted to stay, he raised his fist for the world to see.”Blake Marnell, a 59-year-old salesman, told the news agency.

Donald Trump is evacuated in an armoured car, heading to the nearest hospital, where he stays only a few hours, while in front of their screens, the rest of America follows the live images of the attack. Shock grips the country, which has already experienced, in its history, multiple assassinations of political figures.

In this violent attack, a spectator is “hit in the head”, his meeting neighbor, Joseph, tells NBC. “Killed instantly”he is “fell down the stands”, he reports. As police and SWAT clear the stands, Joseph helps carry the body to a nearby tent. Two other people were also injured in the shooting.

At that time, US President Joe Biden was in a church in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

He spoke a few moments later to strongly condemn the assassination attempt, unprecedented in the country since nineteen eighty one. “There is no place in America for this kind of violence”he hammers home. While the FBI is on the scene, the fear is now giving way to the investigation. And, soon, to political repercussions.