(NewsNation) — Jon Malis was filming the July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and didn’t realize what he’d caught on tape until he looked at it later.
When he watched it back, Malis saw the face of former President Donald Trump’s attempted assassin moments before the Secret Service shot and killed him.
“All I saw was his face kind of turn and look toward us,” Malis said.
That may have been the moment an officer with the Butler County Emergency Response Services Unit fired a shot that caused the gunman to pause and allowed a Secret Service countersniper to fire a fatal round at the shooter.
A local SWAT officer’s round prompted the gunman to recoil and stop shooting for about 10 seconds, The Washington Post reported, citing Butler County District Attorney Richard and an unnamed local law enforcement officer.
The crowd had grown increasingly worried leading up to the shooting. According to Malis, attendees tried to alert police about a man on a rooftop about 420 feet from the stage. That’s a distance about 60 feet longer than an NFL-regulation football field.
“There were a lot of people around the building that were complaining about some guy crawling up the building and then crawling up the roof,” Malis said. “We just figured it was some kids or some adult trying to get a better view.”
But the complaints grew louder, and people in the crowd began calling for police. Other videos from the scene that day show rallygoers yelling to officers just after 6 p.m. Attendees reported pointing and shouting that an armed man had climbed onto the roof of a single-story building near the stage.
Meanwhile, the gunman set up his AR-style weapon and lay on the rooftop with a detonator in his pocket to set off crude explosive devices stashed in his nearby parked car.
When police officers arrived, Malis thought they were there to move him and other rallygoers further from the stage.
“We were so close to Trump on that fence line,” he said. “You could see him pretty clearly … but then we saw one of the police officers pull out his sidearm. And that’s when my wife and I decided we should probably move on.”
Malis’ wife was filming the area where Trump was speaking and noticed Secret Service members talking to each other, Malis said.
“They started moving quickly towards the building, and then the Secret Service snipers that were on top of the building changed their focus from us — because they were watching everybody on the fence line — to the rooftop.”
The first shots rang out about 20 seconds later.
While recording the scene, Malis saw the gunman’s face turn in his direction. A local police officer reportedly encountered the gunman on the roof around that same time.
“(The man in front of me) said, ‘Hey, he’s got a gun. ‘He’s aiming it at us,’” Malis said.
He recalled hearing nine shots before a Secret Service countersniper fired the round that killed the gunman.
When Malis watched his video later and zoomed in, he saw the shooter sit up, adjust his weapon and “aim it right towards us” just before the Secret Service fired the final round.
Trump suffered a graze wound to his right ear and was treated at a local hospital. One rallygoer, Corey Comperatore, was killed, and at least two others were seriously injured.
The gunman’s motive is unknown.
Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned a little more than a week after the shooting. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle questioned the Secret Service’s actions that day and called for Cheatle to step down. She resigned a little more than a week later.
On Tuesday, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate told lawmakers a social media account they believe is linked to the shooter posted multiple antisemitic and anti-immigrant messages and comments. Other posts seemed to espouse political violence, he said.
Acting Director Ronald Rowe said the Secret Service has expanded its use of drones at protective sites to detect threats on roofs and other elevated locations to prevent future lapses. He testified that the Secret Service’s late deployment of counterdrone operations at the rally “has cost me a lot of sleep.”
Connectivity issues had caused the delay, he said.