Two persons have been declared dead with two others injured in an assassination attempt on former US President, Donald Trump, at a political rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
Global news agency, AFP, reports that one of Trump’s supporters was killed in the shooting while the shooter was also neutralised by agents of the United States‘ Secret Service.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified the shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old from Pennsylvania’s Bethel Park, according to US media.
Crooks was named by the FBI “as the subject involved in the assassination attempt on the former President Donald Trump.”
According to the Secret Service, the shooter “fired multiple shots toward the stage from an elevated position outside the rally” before being “neutralised” by agents.
Multiple witnesses said they saw the gunman before the shooting and alerted authorities. Trump’s supporter Ryan Knight said he saw the attacker in a nearby building.
“When I was sitting there, a guy said: ‘Oh God, he had a gun,’” Knight told journalists. Local police said they had “responded to a number of reports of suspicious activity” but gave no further details.
The attacker was armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, US media reported. The gunman and a bystander were killed at the rally, while two spectators were critically wounded.
Two witnesses told US media they saw a man fatally shot in the head. “The man beside me suffered a gunshot to the head, was instantly killed (and)… Another woman looked like she got hit in the forearm or hand,” a man, whose name was only given as Joseph, told NBC News.
A second witness, who said he was an emergency doctor, said he went to help after someone shouted that a person had been shot.
“The guy had spun around, was jammed between the benches. He had a headshot here,” he said, indicating a spot on his head, in comments shared widely in US media.
“There’s lots of blood and he had brain matter,” said the man, who was wearing a white USA T-shirt stained with blood.
