A Pennsylvania man who captured video of the would-be assassin who nearly killed former President Donald J. Trump at a Saturday rally described the experience during an appearance on Fox News.
Michael Difrischia, along with his wife Amber, came out to hear the soon-to-be Republican nominee at the event in Butler, a city about 35 miles north of Pittsburgh in the key battleground state, not knowing that not only would they be witnesses to history, but would also record viral video of the young man who came less than an inch from infamy.
(Video Credit: Fox News)
Difrischia recalled the moment he recorded 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks on his cellphone as the shooter got into position for his failed assassination attempt on Sunday’s edition of “The Ingraham Angle” where he described the fateful moment.
“We had just been there about 10 minutes and we got a spot to where we could see the teleprompter and we could hear the audio and once Trump started to speak I was watching him and then my wife kind of nudged me, she was standing next to me and she said ‘hey what’s going on behind us’ and when I turned around it was, we saw a younger kid running through the crowd and somebody had spoke up, said that the guy had a gun,” he told host Laura Ingraham.
“At first I just thought it was somebody trying to get a better advantage point of the rally and I didn’t think too much of it so I went back to listening to Trump and then once somebody said that he had a gun all chaos ensued and everybody was screaming at the cops you know, to get over there,” Difrischia continued.
“The problem was, the police officers were too close to the building, they could not see him him. Where we were at we had a perfect vantage point of him and we were trying to tell them he’s right there he’s right there but they just couldn’t see him,” he added, explaining why cops were initially unable to spot the would-be assassin.
Wild video shows the shooter crawling into position while folks point him out to law enforcement at Trump rally. pic.twitter.com/pYRvkSWZSb
— Moshe Schwartz (@YWNReporter) July 15, 2024
“We seen one officer trying to climb the side of the building and he kind of pulled himself up on and as soon as he pulled himself up over, I don’t know if the guy startled him or what happened but he just let go and he fell to the ground and then shortly after that is when I started to film and when the guy started to shoot,” Difrischia said.
“What prompted you to start filming?” Ingraham asked. “Again…some people would just drop their phone and run, but you decided to stay on that shot, why?”
Most people did take off running, I always seem to have my phone in my hand, that’s what the family says and once I seen that he had a gun with my own two eyes I just knew that something bad may be ready to happen and I kinda hid behind a tree and I just said you know, I’m going to get this on video,” he responded.
“He looked determined,” Difrischia said of the shooter. “He was scurrying up that roof, I know he heard all of us and heard all the commotion but he never stopped, he went up that roof and he army-crawled the whole way up to where he stopped and then he got into position as you can see on the video you’re showin’ there. He just really quickly got up there, got into position and I think it was eight or nine seconds into my video he started lettin’ rounds fly.”
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