‘Unbelievable’: Witness to Trump rally shooting shares surreal observations from event
BUTLER, Pa. (WISH) — An eyewitness to the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday says it was surreal to watch “history in the making.”
Josh Drespling is from New Castle, about 40 minutes west of Butler where the rally took place. He says he attended the rally out of curiosity, and as an amateur photographer, he could take photos.
Drespling was about 50 yards from the podium during the rally. He told News 8 that witnessing the shooting was an “unbelievable” and “surreal” moment.
“(Trump) spoke for about six or seven minutes, then I heard a pop. Pop pop. Pop pop pop pop pop,” he said. “At first I thought it was firecrackers, someone screwing around. And within what seemed like hours in my head, but was only a few seconds, I realized, ‘This is not someone with firecrackers.’”
Drespling says he believed Trump was “done” after he fell to the ground and was surrounded by Secret Service agents. Drespling didn’t see what hit Trump but saw him grab his ear.
“There was this moment of silence where everyone’s jaw dropped,” he said. “We were asking, ‘Is this real?’”
Drespling describes the moments after the shooting as a “gamut of emotion.”
“It seemed like everybody was helping everybody,” he said. “There were people as it was happening who dropped down on their hands and knees. There were people crying, tearful, and after Trump had left, there were people with their heads in their hands just crying.”
The exit from the rally was not as chaotic as some would expect. Drespling says following an announcement that attendees had to leave the fairgrounds, the exit from the rally was “orderly.”
He was toward the front of the crowd and left the fairgrounds quickly. As he was walking out of the rally, he says he wondered if what just happened had set in for the people walking beside him.
“Some of them were joking and jovial, but everybody was on their phone, calling whoever and saying, ‘They just shot Trump,’” he said. “When I was standing there taking pictures, one of the things that ran through my head was Lincoln and Reagan. This is history in the making.”
When asked how he feels this would impact the state of the country and the election, he says he doesn’t see anything good that could come of it.
“I’ve seen people manipulating it into a divisive piece of history, and I don’t think anything good will come from this,” he said.
