Manheim Township graduate Nathan Rybner, 23, was sitting near the front row of former President Donald Trump’s rally in Butler on Saturday when a gunman opened fire at the presumptive GOP nominee.
Rybner, in a section to the right of the stage, said he mistook the loud bangs echoing behind him to be firecrackers. He remained sitting upright as most attendees and the former president dove to the ground for cover.
“Because of how close we were to Trump, our heads were absolutely in the scope of the shooter,” Rybner told LNP | LancasterOnline on Sunday afternoon. Rybner is a GOP committee member in Erie, having moved there from Manheim Township last year.
Rybner said he had a clear view over the event’s security barricades as Trump grabbed his bloodied ear, where he was grazed by one of the bullets, and members of his Secret Service detail swarmed the stage to shield him.
Rybner also said he watched Trump throw his fist into the air as Secret Service agents pulled the former president from the stage.
“It was completely surreal,” he said. “It’s more so a feeling over anything else.”
Rybner said he sat just 20 feet away from Corey Comperatore, the 50-year-old fireman who was killed in the shooting. Learning of Comperatore’s death sparked “a really somber feeling,” Rybner said. Gov. Josh Shapiro confirmed Comperatore’s identity Sunday.
The FBI has named Thomas Matthew Crooks as the suspected shooter. He was killed by the Secret Service at the rally.
Rybner said security kept them in their seats for a few minutes when the crowd tried to leave. Some nearby attendees speculated where the shots could have come from, he said, or of the possibility that there could be multiple shooters. He added it took him almost three hours to exit the property once he and his friend reached their car in the parking lot.
Rybner said he had worked the Trump event as a volunteer earlier that day, handing out water bottles to people in the line of thousands who waited hours for the program to start. He said Saturday’s heat was the only difference between the Butler event and the other three Trump rallies he’s attended, including Trump’s visit to Lancaster Airport in 2020.
Rybner was involved in Lancaster County politics before he moved to Erie. In 2022, he was elected a committee member of Manheim Township’s GOP, and last year he ran for Manheim Township district judge.
This year, he unsuccessfully ran to be a delegate for Congressional District 16, which covers Erie and stretches down western Pennsylvania to cover Butler County, at the Republican National Convention, which starts Monday.
He said Saturday’s incident has not dissuaded him from politics. “My resolve is only stronger.”
But, as many politicians have said in the day following the attack against Trump, Rybner said the 2024 election's heated partisanship needs to calm. He said he appreciated that President Joe Biden’s campaign announced it would pull political advertisements in the wake of the shooting.
“There are real people who are impacted by what happens when people who are in power take action,” Rybner said.
