Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was wounded in the right ear in an assassination attempt by a gunman during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, prompting condemnation from world leaders.
The 78-year-old former president was quickly carried off the stage, blood streaming down his face after the shooting in Butler City on Saturday, while the suspected shooter and a rally-goer were killed and two spectators were seriously injured.
Trump raised his fist defiantly toward the crowd as he was led to safety, then said: “I was shot with a bullet that went through the top of my right ear.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed at a press conference that the shooting was being treated as “an attempted murder.”
The FBI has identified Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, as the “subject involved” in the attempted murder, it said in a statement Sunday.
The US Secret Service said in a statement that the suspect “fired multiple shots toward the stage from an elevated position outside the rally” before being “neutralized” by agents.
Police confirmed one spectator was killed and two were seriously injured, all adult males.
US President Joe Biden said “the whole world must condemn” the alleged assassination attempt on Trump. “We cannot allow this to happen,” Biden said. “The idea that there is violence like this in America is simply unheard of.”
Biden cut short a weekend trip to his Delaware beach home to return to Washington, D.C. He will receive an update briefing from security officials on Sunday morning, the White House said.
Trump's campaign said he would still attend the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee after reports he had undergone a precautionary hospital checkup.
