What My Colleagues Saw at the Trump Rally Shooting

Former President Donald Trump was onstage in Butler, Pa., launching into a familiar riff about immigration, when the pop-pop of gunfire tore through the 90-degree air on Saturday evening.

Trump grabbed his ear and dropped to the ground, as the rallygoers behind him dove for cover. He pumped his fist as he was rushed offstage with blood on his face, seizing the chance to project strength before speeding off to the hospital. He said later, on social media, that he had been shot in the ear.

The shooting at the Trump rally, coming just days before the start of the Republican National Convention, is a shocking and deadly twist in this year’s presidential election — and another disturbing chapter in this country’s recent history of political violence. One person who was in the crowd is dead, and two more are gravely injured. A suspect was killed by law enforcement. And the shooting is being investigated as an attempted assassination.

Trump and other Republicans have already seized on the images of his defiance and insisted that the gathering in Milwaukee will proceed. We do not know yet what this fractured country will make of this moment, or basic details about the suspect.

What we know right now, though, is what we saw. And so tonight, I want to highlight the words of two of my colleagues who were there.

One of them, Simon Levien, wrote that he heard the shots and ducked.

Another colleague, the photographer Doug Mills, described the scene as the most horrific he had experienced in decades of photographing presidents. Doug heard the pops and kept taking pictures before he realized what they were.