Honestly, it’s the kind of thing that feels like a fever dream now, but the images are burned into everyone's brain. One minute Donald Trump is complaining about immigration charts on a big screen in rural Pennsylvania, and the next, he’s ducking behind a podium while Secret Service agents pile on top of him. If you're asking where did trump get shot, the answer is both a very specific set of GPS coordinates and a moment in American history that almost went a completely different way.
He was at the Butler Farm Show grounds. It’s this big, open-air venue about 30 miles north of Pittsburgh. On July 13, 2024, at roughly 6:11 p.m., the former president was standing at a lectern when several shots rang out. One of them clipped his upper right ear. It was close. Like, "an inch from a different headline" close.
The Exact Spot: Breaking Down the Butler Farm Show Layout
The rally took place in Connoquenessing Township, which is basically the Meridian area near Butler. It’s an agricultural site, the kind of place you’d go for a 4-H fair or a tractor pull. Trump’s stage was set up facing south-southeast.
If you look at the maps that came out during the investigation, the "where" becomes a lot more controversial. To the north of the stage—outside the official security perimeter—sat a cluster of industrial buildings owned by AGR International. This is where the shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was positioned.
He wasn't miles away. He was on a roof roughly 400 to 450 feet from the stage. To put that in perspective, that’s a bit longer than a football field. For a rifle like the AR-15-style weapon he used, that’s a very manageable distance.
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Why the building location mattered
The building Crooks climbed was a low-slung, single-story warehouse. Law enforcement was actually inside the building complex, using it as a lookout point, but nobody was on the roof itself. This has been a massive point of contention in congressional hearings ever since.
- The Stage: Located near the center of the Farm Show grounds.
- The Shooter’s Perch: The southernmost roof of the AGR International complex.
- The Counter-Snipers: Positioned on the roofs of barns behind Trump (to his north).
How It Went Down: The Ear, the Chart, and the Move
The "where" on his body is just as specific. Trump was shot in the upper portion of his right ear.
He later said that a "whizzing sound" was the first thing he noticed before he felt the "bullet ripping through the skin." There’s a lot of talk about "divine intervention" or just plain luck because of a last-second head tilt. Trump was looking at a screen to his right—the one showing those border crossing stats—and that slight turn of his head is likely what saved his life. If he’d been looking straight ahead, the trajectory would have been much worse.
It wasn't just him, though. The gunfire hit others in the crowd. Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief, was killed while shielding his family. Two other men, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, were seriously wounded but survived.
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The Security Gap: How Did This Happen?
You’ve gotta wonder how a 20-year-old with a ladder (which he bought that morning) and a rifle could just... get there.
The Secret Service basically admitted the "buck stops" with them, but the finger-pointing between federal and local law enforcement was messy. The AGR building was supposed to be under the jurisdiction of local police, but there was a communication breakdown.
Crooks actually used an HVAC unit and some piping to clamber onto the roof. People in the crowd saw him. They were literally pointing at him and shouting to the police for several minutes before the first shot was fired. One local officer even climbed up to the roof, saw Crooks, and then had to drop back down when Crooks pointed the rifle at him. Seconds later, the shooting started.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Site
A lot of folks think the shooter was part of the rally or inside the gates. He wasn't. He never went through a magnetometer. Because the AGR building was outside the "secure" zone, he just walked up to it from the outside.
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Also, the distance wasn't "impossible." People hear "sniper" and think of 1,000-yard shots. This was roughly 150 yards. Any decent hunter or target shooter can hit a target at that range with a basic red-dot sight, which is what Crooks had.
What to Keep in Mind Today
If you’re looking into this now, the site has become a bit of a landmark for his supporters. Trump even went back to Butler later in the year to "finish the speech," joined by Elon Musk.
Actionable Steps for Staying Informed:
- Check the House Task Force Reports: If you want the raw, non-politicized layout of the site, the "Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump" has released detailed maps and timelines.
- Look at the Drone Footage: Several news outlets (like Fox and CNN) released overhead drone shots that show the exact line of sight from the roof to the podium. It makes the proximity much easier to understand than a 2D map.
- Verify the Source: When reading about the "how" or "why," stick to the FBI's investigative updates rather than social media theories. The motive is still officially "undetermined," even two years later.
Basically, the event wasn't just a failure of a perimeter; it was a failure of communication in a very specific patch of grass and gravel in Butler, Pennsylvania.