A flashback to the July Trump assassination attempt, and what's happened since then

 

Former President Donald Trump is helped off the stage after an attempted assassination during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. 

Gene J. Puskar/AP

Not too long ago, Trump was the target of an assassination attempt during a July rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when a staccato of shots rang out in the middle of his speech, killing one attendee and severely injuring two others. According to the FBI, either a bullet or a bullet fragment struck Trump, wounding him on the ear.

The incident sparked a broader investigation around lapses in Trump’s security apparatus, increasing scrutiny on the Secret Service. Amid a possible second assassination attempt, lawmakers and officials are still in the process of investigating the first attempt on Trump’s life.

A flashback to Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania: Video showed some attendees noticed the gunman on the roof at least one minute and 57 seconds before the shooting began, and several rally attendees tried to call attention to the gunman as Trump was speaking on the stage. The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was fatally shot at the scene.

Secret Service boosts security: Since the incident, the Secret Service has bolstered Trump’s security detail and surrounds the former president with bulletproof glass at campaign rallies. A senior official told CNN additional security measures would also include increasing the number of agents and certain technological changes, though the official declined to provide more details.

The fallout: Then-Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned in July amid criticism for security lapses related to the assassination attempt, and the agency is under continued pressure from lawmakers to hold individuals accountable for those failures. Ronald Rowe, now acting director of the Secret Service, had said several times he would wait until the results of internal investigations into the shooting before making personnel decisions over that day’s failures. Multiple Secret Service personnel from the Pittsburgh Field Office and one member of Trump’s security detail involved in the planning for the July 13 rally were reassigned to administrative duties and ordered to work from home.