Man Shot at Rally Recorded Video of Person on Roof

James Copenhaver stopped filming moments before he was shot
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 31, 2024 3:51 PM CDT

A man who was shot and seriously injured at Donald Trump's Butler, Pennsylvania, rally may have recorded video of the gunman. Fox News reports that James Copenhaver's video shows a figure moving across the roof of the American Glass Research building minutes before the shooting.

  • Fox reports that in the video, which starts at 6:08pm, "the person appears on the roof of the building adjacent to where Trump is speaking and can be seen walking from the 1:00 second mark to about the 2:50 second mark." Investigators say Thomas Crooks started shooting at 6:11pm. Joseph Feldman, Copenhaver's lawyer, says Copenhaver had stopped filming by then. He says Copenhaver paused recording when people turned to look at a projection screen.

  • Copenhaver, 74, and David Dutch, 57, were critically injured in the shooting, which killed 50-year-old former fire chief Corey Comperatore. Trump, who had also turned to look at the screen, was grazed by a bullet.
  • Copenhaver was shot in his arm and in his abdominal area, Feldman says. He was discharged from Allegheny General Hospital on July 26, almost two weeks after the July 13 shooting. Dutch was discharged from the same hospital last week, KDKA reports.
  • "He had almost seen or heard something whiz past him, which we're assuming was a bullet," Feldman says of Copenhaver. "He felt it on his arm, and he looked down at his arm." Copenhaver "felt pain initially, but he hadn't even realized he had been shot a second time at that point. It could have been shock," Feldman says.
(More Trump rally shooting stories.)

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