Trump rally shooting – live: FBI names suspect in assassination attempt on ex-president

The FBI has identified 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks as the “subject involved” in the shooting during Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. The former president was shot in the ear but said he was “fine” despite the injury.

The shooting is being investigated as an assassination attempt, the FBI stated.

The gunman was killed by Secret Service agents at the rally after he fired at the crowd from outside the perimeter. A person in the crowd was killed and two others were injured during the shooting.

Around 6pm on Saturday — after Trump was on stage for about 15 minutes in Butler, Pennsylvania — around seven or eight popping sounds were heard. The former president dropped behind a podium as his Secret Service detail swarmed him. He was hoisted and removed from the stage by several agents with blood on his right ear and down his cheek.

A post on Trump’s Truth Social account says that he “was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear”, adding: “I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin.”

In remarks from Delaware, President Joe Biden said that “there’s no place in America for this kind of violence. It’s sick, adding: “We cannot allow for this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this.”

The president spoke with Trump late on Saturday night, according to the White House.

New York Times photographer Doug Mills, who was present at the rally where Donald Trump was shot at, recalls the moment when the gunman began shooting.

“I kept taking pictures. He went down behind the lectern, and I thought, ‘Oh my God, something’s happened,’” he told New York Times.

“Then all the agents