“We could clearly see him with a rifle,” the eyewitness told the BBC

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An eyewitness says he saw a man with a rifle just before the shooting that took place at Donald Trump’s presidential campaign rally in Butler, Penn., on July 13.

In an interview with the BBC, the witness — identified by the outlet only as Greg — said he saw the man crawl on top of a building outside the event, minutes before gunfire was aimed at Trump, 78.

“We noticed the guy bear-crawling up the roof of the building beside us, 50 feet away from us,” Greg told the outlet. “… He had a rifle. We could clearly see him with a rifle.”

Greg continued, “We’re pointing at him. The police are down there running around on the ground. We’re like, ‘Hey man, there’s a guy on the roof with a rifle,’ and the police … did not know what was going on.”

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Greg said he tried to alert the Secret Service for a few minutes about the gunman. “I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why is Trump still speaking? Why have they not pulled him off the stage?’ The next thing you know, five shots ring out,” he told the BBC.

“We were telling the police, we were pointing at him for the Secret Service, who were looking at us from the top of the barn,” he continued.

Greg also questioned why more Secret Service members weren’t around to provide security. “Why is there not Secret Service on all of these roofs here?” he asked. “This is not a big place.”

The eyewitness also told the BBC that the gunman was shot dead. “They crawled up on the roof, they had their guns pointed at him, made sure he was dead,” Greg said. “He was dead, and that was it. It was over.”

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In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi confirmed that “a suspected shooter fired multiple shots toward the stage from an elevated position outside of the rally.”

Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger told CNN that one other spectator at the rally died, with another in serious condition.

Trump addressed the incident in a statement shared on his social media platform, Truth Social, stating that he was “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.”

Various political figures — from Joe Biden and Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi and George W. Bush — have since responded to the shooting with their own statements.

Anyone with information that may assist with the investigation is asked to call the FBI tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI.