{"id":2902,"date":"2024-10-15T06:46:46","date_gmt":"2024-10-15T06:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/?p=2902"},"modified":"2024-10-15T07:32:50","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T07:32:50","slug":"two-men-shot-during-pennsylvania-assassination-attempt-on-trump-say-secret-service-failed-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/hi\/two-men-shot-during-pennsylvania-assassination-attempt-on-trump-say-secret-service-failed-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Two men shot during Pennsylvania assassination attempt on Trump say Secret Service failed them"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

BUTLER, Pa. (AP) \u2014 Two men who were shot during the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump this summer say the U.S. Secret Service was \u201cnegligent\u201d in protecting the former president and other bystanders at the campaign rally in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

David Dutch, 57, an ex-Marine, and James Copenhaver, 74, a retired liquor store manager, told NBC News in an exclusive interview Monday<\/a> they were excited to be sitting in the bleachers behind the Republican nominee at the fairgrounds in Butler on July 13 when gunshots rang out and they were hit.<\/p>\n

Another man, Corey Comperatore, 50, was killed in the shooting<\/a> while shielding his family. Trump was wounded <\/a> in the ear.<\/p>\n

The interview with the two Pennsylvania men who were critically injured marked their first public statements since 20-year-old shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, opened fire in July from an unsecured rooftop nearby before he was fatally shot by sharpshooters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like getting hit with a sledgehammer right in the chest,\u201d said Dutch, who served in both Desert Shield and Desert Storm in his time with the Marines from 1986 to 1992. He said he could see chunks of the bleacher and metal \u201cflying all around\u201d until the shooting stopped.<\/p>\n

Dutch said Monday he was still \u201cangry that the whole situation even happened. It should have never happened.\u201d NBC News reported the two men’s attorneys said they were looking into possible litigation over what they view as negligence by the Secret Service.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t have happened, had it been secure,\u201d Copenhaver said.<\/p>\n

Kimberly Cheatle, director of the Secret Service at the time, called the attempt on Trump\u2019s life at the Pennsylvania rally the Secret Service\u2019s \u201cmost significant operational failure\u201d in decades.” She stepped down this summer after lawmakers called for her to resign.<\/p>\n

Trump returned earlier this month to the Pennsylvania fairgrounds where he was nearly assassinated<\/a> in July, urging a large crowd to deliver an Election Day victory that he tied to his survival of the shooting.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BUTLER, Pa. (AP) \u2014 Two men who were shot during the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump this summer say the U.S. Secret Service was \u201cnegligent\u201d in protecting the former president and other bystanders at the campaign rally in Pennsylvania. David Dutch, 57, an ex-Marine, and James Copenhaver, 74, a retired liquor store manager, told<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump-election-news"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/wc9R95JCiXsMDapvRa0mQQ--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTEyMDA7aD04MDA-\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/ap.org\/d6e83704a4cc0aa2f4de9b7c020fa1ea","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2904,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2902\/revisions\/2904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/hi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}