At a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July 2024, a 20-year-old gunman opened fire from a rooftop about 150 metres from the stage, striking Donald Trump’s right ear with the first shot. Trump dropped, then rose with blood on his face and raised a fist, shouting Fight, in an image that instantly became one of the defining photographs of the election.
One spectator, former fire chief Corey Comperatore, was killed shielding his family, and two others were critically wounded before a Secret Service counter-sniper killed the shooter. The attack ignited a political storm over the agency’s security failures, leading to the resignation of its director, and became the subject of intense congressional investigation and multiple reports.
The attempted assassination reshaped the presidential race, hardening support behind Trump in the weeks that followed and dominating the security conversation through the election. It also exposed, with rare clarity, how close modern political violence had come to changing the outcome of a national election, and how thin the line can be between a campaign stop and a security incident.