Trump Assassination Attempt: New Body Cam Video Shows Shooter On the Roof
New video and information from the Trump assassination attempt clears up some questions
New videos and information continue to trickle out slowly. Since my last piece on this trying to put the facts in order, James Copenhaver, the 74 year-old victim, released his footage, showing the shooter popping up on the roofline of the AGR building just three minutes before the shooting. (Video with original audio can be seen on X.)
It is important to notice that a firearm is NOT visible in Copenhaver’s video, taken at 6:08 p.m. Because no weapon is seen, while he is clearly suspicious, he is not yet an imminent threat; for all the USSS snipers know, he’s just a fanboy who wants a better vantage point. Can you imagine the PR nightmare that would have happened if the snipers had fired right then, and he turned out to be an innocent kid just trying to get a better view of his favorite President? The USSS could not engage unless they were confident he was a threat, and USSS Acting Director Rowe confirmed that no one from Secret Service knew the shooter was armed until shots were fired. But, what we do know is that at 6:08 pm, three minutes before the shooting started, the south-facing USSS sniper turned to the north, facing the AGR building. This means that while he was not an imminent threat, he certainly had the USSS snipers’ attention.
Other recently released footage, from Dave Stewart, shows the police responding to the AGR building at 6:09 pm before any shots are fired.
Then, on Thursday, Aug 8, the Butler PD released the body cam footage from the officer who was hoisted up to the roof and verified there was a gun in play.
A photography account on X stitched the video from Dave Stewart with the body cam of the local officer in order to show how the videos fit together. Other body cam footage was also released, and everyone seems to have slightly different edits or clips from the varying cams. This one features an officer who was very upset with the Secret Service:
“I f**king told them they need to post the guys f**king over here. I told them that, the f**king, the Secret Service, I told them that f**king Tuesday. I told them to post f**king guys over here.” The tattooed officer later told a colleague that they didn’t have anyone on the roof because the Secret Service had promised to put someone in the area.
This one has clips from several different body cams, including a dash cam that caught the shots, stitched together:
Another 25 minutes of raw footage of a Butler Township ESU helmet cam was found on X (I cannot embed it, so click here to view it). Also, Judicial Watch put out a compilation of footage they received:
Thanks to the reporting from WaPo, we now know where the local officer who fired at the shooter was standing and what happened to the local sniper posted inside the building.
What we now know is that at about 4:30 pm, a local sniper left the AGR building after a shift change, spotted the shooter, TMC, at a picnic table, and texted his team to warn them that the guy was suspicious and likely now knew where the snipers were.
TMC was next spotted on the ground, lurking around the AGR building about 40 minutes later. The local Beaver County sniper texted photos of him to his dispatch and tried to keep an eye on him. Here is where the communications begin to break down. The local PD had their headquarters in one location, and the State PD and Secret Service were in a different building about 300 yards away. The only way for the local PD to contact the other LEO organizations was via cell phone. However, at about 5:47 pm, when the local dispatch was trying to reach his state PD contact, he was advised that cell phone service was down.
This means the local PD was essentially on their own to deal with this. So, the dispatcher asked everyone in the area to be on the lookout for him. The Beaver County Sniper, who had been stationed on the south side of the building facing the rally, left his position to look out the other windows on the second floor to see if he could spot TMC. The Beaver County DA praised his sniper for taking action to try to find the suspicious guy. At 6:02 pm, the sniper spotted TMC heading north between the buildings but then lost sight of him again. This is when TMC used the A/C unit attached to the fourth section of the AGR building to climb up on the roof. The FBI claims to have footage of TMC climbing onto the roof at 6:06 pm.
Local PD was still searching for TMC on the ground behind the AGR building when, at 6:08 pm, the exact moment Copenhaver’s video captured him running along the roof, the bar crowd in the tree line pointed him out to the police on the ground. This is when the police are seen swarming around the AGR building on Dave Stewart’s footage. It’s at this point that the local PD’s swat team deploys from the barns behind Trump and lines the fence between the AGR building and the rally.
At 6:11 pm, a local PD officer radios his dispatch that TCM is on the roof with a gun. Dispatch immediately uses his cell phone to call his State PD contact to try to get word to the Secret Service so they can notify the USSS Snipers of the threat. While he was on the phone, explaining the situation to the State PD, shots rang out.
The first shot hit Trump’s ear. Of the subsequent seven shots fired by TMC, one hit and killed Corey Comperatore, two hit David Dutch, and two hit James Copenhaver. Right as TMC fired his eighth shot, a local Butler County swat officer on the ground fired in the general direction of the shooter. In an interview later, he said he never saw the shooter, only the muzzle flashes.
A rally worker told WaPo that while everyone around him was scrambling and ducking for cover, the local swat officer stood firm, aimed, and fired. WaPo confirmed via other witnesses and video of the scene that after the local officer fired, TMC flinched, stopped shooting, and ducked. When he popped his head back up a few seconds later, the South-side USSS sniper found his opening.
Motive:
As far as motive, the closest anyone has come to figuring out a possible motive is TMC’s former classmate, Max Shrager. In an interview with NewsNation, Shrager compared the shooter with the guy who shot Lennon. “I don’t like this word, but he was described as a nobody. Wanted to make a name for himself. Wanted some kind of publicity. I feel like [the shooter], that might (also) have been the case,” he said.
Lending credence to that idea is the fact that TMC had been planning something like this for over a year. FBI now has evidence that he had made dozens of “firearm-related purchases” over the last year, many using fake names and other methods of attempting to cover his tracks. He also researched other mass shooting events and previous presidential assassinations, as well as purchased the chemicals he used to make his rudimentary explosives.
We have learned that the shooter did NOT make the ominous Steam post that was previously attributed to him. It turned out that some rando changed his Steam account name to the shooter’s name after he was ID’d, and somehow, law enforcement fell for it and even informed Congress about the account.
There seem to be conflicting social media accounts, but the FBI is spooked about verifying any of them after they messed up with the Steam account. There does seem to be a confirmed Gab account that posted pro-Biden sentiments. We know that because Gab CEO Andrew Torba confirmed it on X and released the letter from the FBI confirming that it was the shooter’s account. He posted to Gab nine times in 2021, all in support of Biden and his policies.
However, when FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate went before Congress, he claimed the FBI had found an account dating back to 2019-2020 that had over 700 posts. Abbate described the content as extreme, having “antisemitic and anti-immigration themes” and said that the shooter seemed “to espouse political violence.” However, the FBI will not identify the account and has not yet shown proof to the public to back up these claims.
Other Victims:
Both of the other men who were severely wounded have been released from the hospital. David Dutch was released on July 24th, and James Copenhaver was discharged on July 26th. Copenhaver released a statement through his lawyer, Max Feldman:
“Overall, he just wants people to understand how unnecessary it was and that the political divide in this country has become so great [that] people are literally willing to attend rallies where people are exercising their First Amendment rights and start firing bullets into crowds,” Feldman said.
“He’s 74 years old. He’s been around a long time. He’s witnessed a lot take place in this country. And this is definitely one of the worst things that he’s experienced as an American, and he wants people to understand that it does not have to be like this.”
Lorraine Yuriar is a wife, mother, and lifelong conservative, currently stuck in a very blue state.
There are at least a dozen people who should be fired.
This really points out the incompetence of the Secret service.