Donald Trump was in Butler, Pa., for an outdoor rally in his campaign to win back the presidency. Less than 10 minutes into his speech, under the blazing July sun, the event changed in an instant. Gunshots were fired toward the former president on the stage, striking him in the ear. “Get down! Get down!” Secret Service agents yelled. Trump ducked and was taken away from the scene. Panic ensued.
The Post’s first report from Butler published almost immediately, at 6:21 p.m., in a live-updates file. The source of the loud noises was not immediately clear. A mobile push alert followed, a banner headline took over the homepage, and then, at 6:44 p.m., the first images from Post photojournalist Jabin Botsford were published, showing blood on Trump’s face. Seven minutes later, The Post reported that Trump was safe, according to the Secret Service. At 7:28 p.m., The Post reported that two people were dead, including the apparent shooter. At 8:05 p.m., it reported that the FBI was investigating the incident as an assassination attempt.
Botsford, who was just a few feet from Trump in the “buffer zone” around the stage, remained in his position through the chaos. In addition to snapping with his camera and angling for the right frames, he tapped his Ray-Ban Meta glasses to record video. Reporter Isaac Arnsdorf, who was covering the rally from the press pen nearby, filed quick dispatches from the scene via Slack to publish in our live-updates file. At 9:18 p.m., just three hours after the shooting, The Post published a gripping dispatch by Arnsdorf and Botsford describing the chaos at the fairgrounds. Their story was more vivid in detail than the reports at that hour from other news organizations.
The Post’s coverage expanded and intensified that night and into the next morning, both with live updates and in contextualized, smartly framed separate stories.
