Well, the latest we've got is a full statement now from the Secret Service, and that has confirmed a number of the details we've been reporting on BBC News for the last couple of hours. They say the shooter was on an elevated position outside the farm show ground where the rally was taking place. That tallies with what our eyewitnesses have been telling us.
They say that two people are dead: one is the shooter, and one is someone who was inside the crowd. Two other people are now critically injured and presumably in the hospital. President Trump has also said that he was hit by a bullet; he says it tore through the skin of the upper part of his right ear. If you just think about that for a moment, that means it was inches— I mean, an inch away from going into his head. So that is how close the former president came this evening to getting a bullet in the head.
This is incredibly shocking developments, incredibly shocking news here on the ground. President Trump was also extended his condolences to those people who have been injured and died. He's also thanked law enforcement for their rapid action, and you can see from the video that they ordered him to the ground as soon as the shooting starts, and then they piled on top, which is what they're trained and paid to do: to put their bodies between him and the bullets. That's what they do, and then they took him away.
We're hearing from his campaign, of course, that he's fine. His sons have been on social media as well. Donald Trump Jr. has spoken to his father, says he's fine. Eric Trump has talked on social media as well. I have to say to you that about half an hour ago, just on the perimeter here, there was an electronic billboard on the back of a truck that had been parked, and it had a picture of Donald Trump's face on it with a target, and it said in terms, "Democrats assassinating Donald Trump, trying to assassinate Donald Trump." So that's a pretty shocking development, and it's an indication perhaps of what may be to come in terms of the divisions this may deepen in this country.
There is a chance, of course, that this is the kind of thing that will make people stop and think about the political atmosphere and the dialogue in America. But there's a chance that it can make it a whole lot worse. Well, it's been a charged atmosphere for many months and years, really, hasn't it, Gary? Of course, you covered the events of January 6th, and this is something that may have been bubbling under the surface for a long time.
Just speaking of those kinds of tensions that you've been mentioning, I just want to flashback though because you were there outside the events when you heard those shots. You spoke to people that were obviously inside. Can you just walk us through and help us understand what those moments were like?
Well, we were standing just a few feet from where I am now, and we were talking to our colleagues on the BBC World Service, and suddenly we heard this volley of gunfire. And it was immediately obvious that that's what it was, that it was gunfire. It wasn't a car backfiring or a motorcycle or anything like that. And we got down on the ground as we had no idea where these bullets were going, where they were coming from, or who was being shot at.
There was no cover here. It's just open fields. There's nowhere to go, really. So we're flat on the dirt, and then people started streaming out of there. You heard screaming happening, and we started to speak to people as they came out. We spoke to a number of people. Some were very emotional, some were very angry. One guy, in fact, here on BBC News, tried to stop us from telling you what was happening, telling the world what was happening, and we had to try and explain to him live on air that this is what we do, this is what we try and do, we try and explain the world to people in the best way we possibly can.
We had another eyewitness who said that he had been just outside the perimeter and he'd come down after a party with some friends to listen to the rally. They didn't have tickets or anything, and he'd seen a guy climbing onto this single-story building, which is to the right of the stage as Donald Trump was on it. It has a white roof, and he said he saw this guy climb onto this roof with a rifle and tried to point this out to the security services, Secret Service, the police.
He said he was doing this for a couple of minutes or so. He wasn't absolutely sure about timings, but he thought this was happening about five or seven minutes into the speech. And then a few minutes later, the shooting started. And in very graphic terms, he told us about how he'd seen the man on the roof with the rifle, how he'd seen him shot or neutralized, as the Secret Service likes to call it here. So it all happened incredibly quickly, and you can hear on that video, you can hear there are kind of two bursts of gunfire, in fact.
And you know, there's clearly an initial burst and probably an exchange of fire there, and certainly another one of the eyewitnesses we spoke to, young teenage boy Colby, he was here with his dad. They own a farm just down the road, two miles down the road from here. And he said he'd seen the flare from the muzzle of the rifles of the Secret Service people on the roofs around when they'd taken the gunman down. And they had also seen a couple of people put on stretchers and taken away in ambulances as well.
So incredibly shocking moments. That was their first rally. That's their first political rally, this teenage boy coming to his first political rally, and he gets this. And his father was shocked, and I have to tell you, this is Trump country, in this part of Pennsylvania, this county very firmly Trump country. People told us afterwards they support gun ownership, they support gun rights, but at least two or three of them said, "We've got to think about what do we do about people having guns and doing...
**Pennsylvania Tom B thank thank you so much for uh bringing us all of those reactions I want to come now back to the studio Christine rafini is uh here with us she's been doing reporting even from the studio just want to talk a bit about the the Secret Service response here we we've heard from a former secret service agent we just heard that statement there uh what do you make of the way they're going about this now and and what might come next in terms of any kind of investigation and whether or not you know we we've heard the word you know assassination thrown around and that's not something we can confirm but it's going to be kind of an important word to parse isn't it because that takes on just a whole different meeting once were able to determine what was behind this and who was behind this apparent attack I don't think that's something you're going to hear from the Secret Service I think they're going to wait for another agency maybe the FBI maybe even the White House to make that determination there's a couple things in the statement that stand out to me the first of all is the way they phrased it they said multiple shots fired towards the stage from an elevated position they didn't say assassination attemp they're just going to give you the facts of what happened right because at this point the shoter is dead they're going to have questions about motive that's not something they're going to be able to find out right now the other thing is it says that the shots were fired from a location outside the venue that's not necessarily outside the perimeter and that's a question that I have whether or not what's the difference then between the perimeter and the venue so the venue itself is the arena the stadium the field the you know I've been to a trump rally and what was an aluminum Warehouse that's the venue but the perimeter the security perimeter extends much further than that and usually includes any High position that could potentially be at risk for someone taking this kind of shot for this very reason so I would be curious to know if this place where this man allegedly fired this shot from was swept was a place the Secret Service had looked over and was allegedly secured within the venue perimeter with not just the actual you know stage and area where it's taking place the other thing have to think about um and that's something we're going to be learning in the days and months to come as we learn the identities of these other victims is when you take a shot at a president who is standing in front of a crowd of supporters you're not just firing a shot at that President there is no way even the best shooter is going to fire at that distance and not potentially hit someone and you we we've seen the images haven't we it was a packed area thousands maybe even tens of thousands of people there there was a potential and we've heard that there have been people seriously injured and there's historical precedent for this you know the president is not always the one who gets the most injured in these assassination attempts just down the street here when um hinley tried to shoot Reagan at the Hilton literally down the hill from where we're sitting it was his press secretary who was catastrophically permanently injured from that shooting whereas Reagan recovered fairly quickly so that's the other part of malice when any of these kinds of incidents is someone is not only going after a political figure but they're going at it with complete dis regard for look at this picture of all those people who are standing around him at that venue and it sounds like people were very very hurt in this incident Christina it's also I think worth noting in that statement that we heard from Donald Trump on his TR Social account he personally said that he was struck by a bullet that he said he he felt that bullet go through his ear he did and that's you know that's something as I was texting with sources today you know it's always unfolding you never know exactly until the FBI gets in there what exactly happened there were concerns at one point it could have been glass it could have hit one of the teleprompters and that could have been what hit him he himself says he was hit by a bullet and you know we'll we'll see what the what the specifics of that were as this comes out in the next few days all right Christina rafini former White House correspondent uh here with me in the studio I just want to play for you now and this is a statement that was was given to Gary odonahue our senior North America correspondent who who was there on the ground and this is a a course a witness telling Gary the moment that he believes the Secret Service took down the alleged shooter so so we had a party here all day at the you can see behind us at the at the brinkles farm and Greenhouse here we had a party um and we all decided hey you know when when we hear Trump up there we're going to walk up through the field stand by the trees up there under the shade and watch and listen to the rally right we couldn't see him but we could hear him so we walked up and probably five to seven minutes of trump speaking I'm estimating here I have no idea you know but um we noticed a guy crawling Army you know bear crawling up the roof of the building beside us 50 50 ft away from us so we're standing there you know we're pointing we're pointing at the guy cro up the roof and he had a gun right he had a rifle we could clearly see him with a rifle absolutely um we're pointing at them the police are down there running around on the ground we're like hey man there's guy on the roof with a rifle and the police were like huh what you know like like they didn't know what was going on you know we're like hey right here on the roof we can see him from right here we see him you know he's he's crawling and next thing you know I'm like I'm thinking to myself I'm like why is Trump still speaking why have they not pulled him off the stage I'm"
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