By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 19, 2024 ~
Congressman Mike Kelly (R-PA) was present at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday, July 13, and gave an interview to Bob Costa of CBS News on the same evening that the shootings occurred. Costa quoted Kelly as telling him: “I believe a lady who was next to me was hit; other people were hit.”
In a far more detailed interview, Dr. Joseph Meyn, an OB-GYN who was present at the rally, spoke to Dasha Burns of NBC News, telling her the following: “I was attending the rally, I was in the set of bleachers to the very far left of the podium where Donald Trump, President Trump, was speaking. I was there with friends. I heard several gun shots. The man beside me suffered a gunshot wound to the head; was instantly killed; fell to the bottom of the bleachers. Another woman looked like she got hit in the forearm or hand….”
And in yet a third interview, a rally attendee, Donna Hutz, provided an eyewitness account to NBC News correspondent Tom Llamas: “The stand that we were in is where the two people got shot. The man that died and the woman. They were in the top, maybe eighth row. These stands weren’t very tall, maybe 10 rows up, and we were in the third row….”
At 2:07 on the NBC News video, Llamas asks Ms. Hutz: “Donna, can you tell us a little about the woman and the extent of her injuries. Did you see where she was hit?” Ms. Hutz responds: “Her’s was more in the hand area from what we could see. You know, things move fast. But it didn’t seem like she was shot in her body area. It was the hand or the wrist area it seemed like that was what was being covered.”
Despite the fact that two television networks reported that a woman was shot at the rally, with reports from three credible eyewitnesses, there has been no pushback from mainstream media as the existence of this woman has disappeared from official law enforcement reports.
We contacted the Pennsylvania State Police and asked if their records showed a woman being injured at the rally from gunshot wounds. We were provided with their official press release which indicated the following:
“The deceased victim was identified as Corey Comperatore, 50, of Sarver, PA. The second victim has been identified as 57-year-old David Dutch, of New Kensington, PA, who is currently listed in stable condition. The third victim was identified as 74-year-old James Copenhaver, of Moon Township, PA. He is also listed in stable condition.”
Even if the woman’s injuries were minor, the public has a right to know how many people at this rally were hit with gunfire, the precise location of these individuals at the time they were shot, and exactly where the eight reported bullets from the sniper on the warehouse rooftop ended up landing.
Concerns that the American people are being deprived of a full and transparent accounting of what happened at this rally intensified yesterday when Fox News, the New York Post and ABC News strangely relocated Corey Comperatore’s body from the bleachers far left of former President Trump (see bleachers in diagram above) to sitting him “behind” President Trump.
In an article published yesterday by Fox News, reporter Charles Creitz writes this: “Zach Scherer, a volunteer firefighter from Chicora – a short drive northeast of the Butler Farm Show – told Fox News Digital on Wednesday he was also in the third row behind Trump on the risers at the moment the former president was injured and fellow firefighter Corey Comperatore was killed.”
Building on that false narrative, a New York Post article published yesterday bizarrely reports that Comperatore was sitting in front row seats at the rally, despite both video and multiple eyewitness reports putting Comperatore toward the top of the bleachers that were farthest left of the podium where Trump was speaking. (See photo below.)
In a minute-by-minute timeline published by ABC News yesterday (which now must be seriously questioned) at 6:12 p.m. on July 13 it indicates that “One spectator who was sitting behind the former president during the rally was killed, and two others were critically injured, according to officials.” (Bold emphasis added.)
The diagram published by CBS News (see above) is the most accurate one we have located – based on information known at this time from our review of over two dozen videos taken at the scene and a review of more than a dozen eyewitness accounts.
It shows that what most likely happened is that the high elevation of the rooftop where the sniper was located, and the angle he fired from, put people in the higher elevations of the bleachers who were in the crossfire to Trump’s location at the podium, at increased risk of taking a bullet.
Nobody in the front rows of the three sets of bleachers, and no one in the thousands of occupied folding chairs that were located in front of the three sets of bleachers, has thus far been reported as injured from gunfire. They were all at a lower elevation than those who were shot.
