U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick attended the Butler rally where former President Donald Trump was shot Saturday evening but both men were unharmed.
In a brief text, Meuser confirmed early Sunday morning he was not hurt.
“Frenetic situation, innocent deaths, very sad,” he wrote.
Meuser, 60, of Jackson Township, Luzerne County, represents the 9th Congressional District. The 9th includes mostly the western half of Luzerne, all of Wyoming, Susquehanna, Bradford, Sullivan, Columbia, Montour, Northumberland, Schuylkill and Lebanon counties, a southeastern part of Lycoming County and a northwestern portion of Berks County.
McCormick, who also sat in the front row, also was unhurt, his campaign spokeswoman confirmed. McCormick told ABC News that Trump introduced him and was about to call him up on stage just before the shots rang out.
“(Trump) said, ‘Well, wait a minute.’ And then there were a number of shots. I think probably seven or eight shots. It wasn't clear whether they were coming from one place or two places, at least I couldn't tell,” said McCormick, an Army Gulf War veteran. “And immediately, there was a swarm of Secret Service officers that got on top, knocked down President Trump and got on top of him. And then he stood back up and you sort of saw this fist come out sort of defiant that, that looked like he was okay, but like, you know, you couldn't tell for sure. It looked like there was some blood but it wasn't obvious.”
The entire crowd hit the ground, he said.
“Because we weren't sure whether the shots were done and, and then unfortunately, over my shoulder, someone had clearly been hit. I was on the ground. And up in the bleachers, probably three or four bleachers behind me. It looked like there was a man who was it was severely injured. There was a lot of blood and, and his people around him were trying to administer first aid.”
Police officers rushed in and carried the man out.
“That's really all I could see. I don't know if there were other people injured. And I don't know if there was anybody apprehended because as you might imagine it once that happened and the crowd was it was very chaotic and it was very hard to know what was going on.”
The state police team helping the FBI, Secret Service and other agencies investigate the assassination attempt includes two men familiar to Northeast Pennsylvanians – State Police Commissioner Christoper Paris, of Dunmore, and Lt. Col. George Bivens. In 2014, Paris and Bivins led the manhunt for Eric Frein, who killed a state trooper and wounded another outside the Dunmore barracks.
While Paris spoke briefly at the first news conference on the shooting early Sunday morning, Bivens handled most of the questions from reporters.
