Butler, Pennsylvania – The Butler Farm Show is being held this week on the same property where an assassination attempt on former President Trump took place last month, a fatality that still weighs heavily on area residents.
The festival, which highlights Pennsylvania’s rich agricultural tradition by displaying a variety of livestock and the latest farm equipment, is seen by local residents as a way to restore some sense of normalcy to a close-knit neighborhood that is recovering from the tragic events of July 13 and has attracted international attention in recent weeks.
A poster for the show says the festival will run all week, “rain or shine.” Severe thunderstorms on Tuesday downed several trees in the surrounding area, but that didn’t stop the beloved family event, which has been held here since 1948.
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Earlier this week, young competitors took part in a lamb market competition in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Michael Dorgan/Fox Digital)
A few hours after the eye of the storm passed through on Tuesday, a middle-aged woman was at the venue outside the Red Barn, where the lamb-slaughtering competition was being held. She sipped coffee and smoked a cigarette, gazing out at the infamous AGR building where Thomas Matthew Crookes fired his fatal shot.
Weeks after the assassination attempt, storm clouds still loomed overhead, casting a dark shadow over the red-hot city. More torrential rain fell that night, making it difficult for even the most intrepid festival-goers to bear, but, as with life, the show here must go on.
“I’m shocked they’re even holding a show when it was a crime scene up until last week,” one woman said. “My family has been coming here since before I was born and now they’ve ruined our agricultural show, it just makes me so angry. I can’t believe they would do this to the Butler Ag Show.”
The woman, who sat a few rows in front of former President Trump at the rally and filmed the moment he was taken away by Secret Service agents, said the town has buckled from its long-held image as an agricultural powerhouse to become infamous as the place where the former president was nearly assassinated.
The Trump shooter was a member of a local shooting club and was on record as practicing his targets the day before the assassination attempt.
Republican presidential nominee and former president Donald Trump reacts as multiple gunshots ring out during a campaign rally at the Butler Agricultural Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. (Reuters/Brendan McDiarmid)
The gunman attacked President Trump and killed Corey Comperatore, a respected local firefighter who was trying to shield his daughters from the gunfire. The other two victims suffered life-threatening injuries but are expected to make a full recovery from the shooting that has plunged the United States into a political crisis.
There is deep skepticism that the truth of what really happened will ever come out among residents of Butler County, a county that Trump won with roughly 66% of the vote in both 2016 and 2020. Many say simple incompetence is beyond sniffing out, and the Secret Service’s lack of transparency only adds fuel to their argument that there’s more to it than meets the eye.
They say they feel let down.
“Someone’s hiding something. Someone’s not telling the truth yet,” the former Democrat said. “There’s no way a 20-year-old would do something like that on their own. I just don’t believe it.”
She asked to remain anonymous for this article and said her family has experienced significant politically related trauma, with her sister serving nearly two years in prison for her actions during the Jan. 6 riot.
The woman said she started lining up at 9 a.m. to get into the Butler rally, but Trump showed up nine hours later and said “something just didn’t feel right that day” and that she felt security was lax.
At a nearby kiosk, the three men could still be heard discussing the events of July 13. Their frustration and anger was palpable.
“There are too many inconsistencies and failures for something like this to have happened,” vendor Bob Osterling said. “It has to be an inside job.”
“The Secret Service, local police, snipers who were supposed to be guarding the roof. There are just too many inconsistencies for it to be a coincidence. It can’t be a coincidence,” said Osterling, who attended the rally and estimates that nearly 50,000 people were in attendance.
A Trump sign on a lawn in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Michael Dorgan/Fox Digital)
The Secret Service said it was responsible for coordinating security with local police, and that law enforcement officials had observed Crooks more than an hour before the shooting and deemed him suspicious but ultimately lost contact with him.
Osterling said the incident has tarnished the community’s reputation.
“It’s pretty embarrassing for our community that something like this happened here. We’re pro-gun control, we’re pro-Trump and for this to happen here. We’re all saying ‘Let’s support blue’ and blue has let us down. I’m kind of pissed.”
Osterling said the incident has only strengthened local support for Trump, and he hopes the former president will return to Butler, where he expects even bigger crowds to come out to welcome him back.
“I hope he comes back here. Everybody’s still a Trump supporter, there’s no question about that. He needs to win the election.”
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A short drive through Butler leaves no doubt that this is very much Trump country, with Old Glory and Trump flags prominently displayed outside many homes and Trump 2024 signs and other Trump-themed signs on their front lawns.
Two neighboring homes not far from the Butler Farm Show installed new signs on their lawns the day after the shooting.
The billboard features the now-infamous photo of a bloodied Trump with his fist raised in defiance seconds after the assassination attempt, and the word “Fight” emblazoned across it.
“I built it the next day,” said Winifred Quinn, a military veteran and homeowner who voted for Ron DeSantis in the Republican primary but now fully supports Trump.
She handed a sign to her neighbor, Paul Krijckow, who was at the rally and said Trump standing up stopped the crowd from becoming violent.
The entrance to the Butler Farm Show, which is being held in the same venue where former President Trump was shot. (Michael Dorgan/Fox Digital)
“It says a lot that a lot of people could have been trampled and that didn’t happen,” Kritchkau said.
They said Trump’s actions embodied the community’s rebellious spirit, pointing out that when potential rioters arrived in the city during the summer 2020 riots, open-carry residents lined the streets of Butler City to block them.
“We said, ‘We’re not going to burn anything here,’ and the police supported that. They stood there with us. No one pointed their weapons at us… and we chased them away,” Kritchkau said.
Neighbors say the town prides itself on law and order and they find it hard to understand why security at the Trump rally was so inadequate and chaotic.
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““It remains unclear to me how the Secret Service, the best trained in the world, could have allowed this to happen,” Quinn said.
“It’s almost like they let their guard down,” Kritchkau said of the Secret Service’s security tactics. “You know, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but if you let it happen, sooner or later it’s going to happen.”
They argue that the Secret Service is responsible for protecting Trump. The two men spoke before Butler Township police released the body camera footage.
“The guy is crawling on top of the building over there with a rifle,” Kritchkau said. “They knew him because one of the officers had photographed him crawling outside the building, but they still didn’t detain him. After a couple of encounters, they had every right to detain him.”
“He’s the guy who had the rangefinder that they saw him use. I mean, what else do you need?”
