After Trump took the stage, shots rang out at his rally

Outside the perimeter, there were stands selling food, beverages and Trump paraphernalia, as is common at the rallies. Behind the stage, separated from the field by waist-high metal barriers, another field stretched out, dotted with distant buildings. The crowd perked up when Trump’s favorite playlist began, kicking off with The Village People’s “YMCA.” Then Trump walked out toward the stage, wearing his familiar red hat, a black suit, white shirt unbuttoned at the neck and no tie.

He smiled and pointed at the crowd as they cheered him, waiting for the Lee Greenwood song to conclude before starting his remarks. “This is a big crowd,” Trump said. “This is a big, big beautiful crowd.”

After name-checking David McCormick, the Republican running against Pennsylvania’s Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, and promising to bring him on stage later in the rally, Trump turned to one of his favorite themes. “We have millions and millions of people in our country who should not be here,” he said. “Dangerous people.”

Then he directed the audience to the projected chart of border crossings.

After the shots rang out and Trump was hustled offstage, agents in black uniforms carrying rifles, the agency’s Counter-Assault team, flooded the stage. The crowd stayed down with the exception of one clutch of people standing near the left edge of the perimeter, near the sounds of gunfire.

Rico Elmore, vice chairman of the Beaver County Republican Party, was sitting in a section for special guests, facing Trump, when he heard what sounded like firecrackers. “So, everyone hesitated — and it was like, no, these are actual shots,” he said in an interview. “So I yelled, ‘Get down!’”

Elmore heard someone from his left calling for a medic. While Elmore isn’t a medic, he knows first aid and CPR from his time in the military. He jumped a barricade, but when he reached the person, Elmore saw he had been shot in the head. Elmore said he held the victim’s head, but it was too late.

“I mean, it was a horror,” Elmore said.

The victim has not been identified.

Even as Trump was driven off, rallygoers stayed low. Some had heard the bullets ricocheting off the grandstand, severing a hydraulic line connecting to the speakers, which began to topple. Others quickly called family or looked on their phones to find out what had happened to the former president.

“Is he all right?” people began to ask. “Is he OK?”

Eventually, people began to trickle out. A small group of about a half-dozen stopped at the fenced area holding the media. “It’s all your fault!” they yelled.

Police and then the Secret Service ushered everyone out. An hour after the shooting the vast field was declared a crime scene, littered with empty plastic water bottles and soggy cardboard containers that once held cheese fries.

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Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.