PENNSYLVANIA, US July 14 \u2013 A man with a rifle was seen on a rooftop minutes before shots were fired at a Donald Trump rally in Pennsylvania, a witness has told the BBC.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Greg Smith, the witness, said the man had crawled on top of a building just outside the event in Butler County on Friday evening.<\/p>\n
He said he pointed the gunman out to police.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m thinking to myself \u2018Why is Trump still speaking, why have they not pulled him off the stage\u2019\u2026 the next thing you know, five shots ring out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The former president was immediately swarmed by Secret Service agents and escorted away. He was seen with blood on his face and later said a bullet had pierced his ear.<\/p>\n
The gunman was shot dead, officials later confirmed. Mr Smith told the BBC he saw Secret Service agents shoot the man.<\/p>\n
Image caption,\u00a0Security officers search for the gunman<\/p>\n
Mr Smith was listening from outside the rally and said he saw the gunman around five minutes into Mr Trump\u2019s speech.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe noticed the guy bear-crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50ft away,\u201d he said. \u201cHe had a rifle, we could clearly see a rifle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re pointing at him, the police are down there running around on the ground, we\u2019re like \u2018Hey man, there\u2019s a guy on the roof with a rifle\u2019\u2026 and the police did not know what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Smith said he tried to alert the authorities for three to four minutes, but he thinks they probably could not see the gunman because of the slope of the roof.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is there not Secret Service on all of these roofs here?\u201d he asked. \u201cThis is not a big place.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he later saw the agents shoot the gunman: \u201cThey crawled up on the roof, they had their guns pointed at him, made sure he was dead. He was dead, and that was it \u2013 it was over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anthony Guglielmi, communications chief for the Secret Service, said its personnel \u201cneutralised the shooter\u201d and \u201cquickly responded with protective measures\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The incident is being investigated as an attempted assassination.<\/p>\n
An audience member has also been killed and two others are critically injured, the Secret Service added.<\/p>\n
Another witness who was inside the event described dropping to the ground after hearing five gunshots in quick succession.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jason, another witness, told the BBC: \u201cWe see the Secret Service jump on Trump to protect him; everyone on the ground dropped down very quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then he \u201cstood up and put his fist up in the air\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a little bloody, his ear was bleeding. He stood up and he was alive and breathing.\u201d<\/p>\n
An emergency department doctor at the rally told CBS News, the BBC\u2019s US partner, that he treated a crowd member for a gunshot wound to the head.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard the shots, I thought it was firecrackers to begin with,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone over there was screaming \u2018He\u2019s been shot, he\u2019s been shot\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey guy had spun around [and was] jammed between the benches.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was a lot of blood.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PENNSYLVANIA, US July 14 \u2013 A man with a rifle was seen on a rooftop minutes before shots were fired at a Donald Trump rally in Pennsylvania, a witness has told the BBC.\u00a0 Greg Smith, the witness, said the man had crawled on top of a building just outside the event in Butler County on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}