Eyewitness accounts of the shooting at a Donald Trump rally have begun to surface, with one man telling media he tried to warn police the alleged shooter was climbing on the roof of a neighbouring building.
“We noticed the guy crawling, bear crawling, up the roof of the building beside us, 50 feet away from us,” the man told BBC News.
“We’re standing there, we’re pointing at the guy crawling up the roof.…we can clearly see him with a rifle,” he said.
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The man said that he notified police in the area of the man, but that the officers “didn’t know what was going on”.
“I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why is Trump still speaking? Why have they not pulled him off the stage?’” he said.
“I’m standing there pointing at him for two, three minutes. Secret Service is looking at us from the top of the barn, I’m pointing at that roof, just standing there like this, and next thing you know, five shots ring out.”
The man’s version of events are yet to be confirmed.
CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, John Miller, said that the man’s eyewitness testimony raises “serious questions” and that there would need to be an “excruciatingly detailed examination” of the events leading up to the shooting.
“There’s going to be an extraordinarily, excruciatingly detailed examination about who knew what, how was this communicated, and who determined to take what action or not take what action,” he told CNN.
Two people, including the alleged gunman, were reportedly killed, and two others critically injured, in the shooting at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania.
The former president was at his last rally before the Republican National Convention opens Monday when apparent gunshots were heard, before the presumptive Republican nominee reached for his right ear and ducked for cover behind the stand.
He was seen being escorted to a car by security personnel with what appeared to be blood on his face.