One of the bystanders shot by a gunman trying to assassinate President Trump during a 2024 campaign rally in Pennsylvania died on Thursday.
James Copenhaver, 76, of Moon Township, died two years after sustaining serious injuries from the attack in Butler.
A statement from his family, shared with local media outlets through their attorney, confirmed Mr. Copenhaver died Thursday but did not include a cause of death or specify whether it was related to the shooting.
Mr. Copenhaver was hit by two of the eight rounds that Thomas Crooks fired toward Mr. Trump. He was seated in the bleachers behind the president, along with two other bystanders who were shot on July 13, 2024.
Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter from Sarver, Pennsylvania, died that day.
David Dutch, who was shot in his abdomen, and Mr. Copenhaver lived but never fully recovered from their injuries, which they described in an interview last year with Pittsburgh CBS affiliate KDKA.
Mr. Copenhaver told the outlet that one of the bullets tore through his tricep and the other took out chunks of his colon and left him with permanent nerve damage.
“It was like a jolt, but it didn’t knock me over,” he said, describing the moment he was shot.
“But I didn’t want to stand any more either, because unfortunately, it’s lodged in right next to my spine and hit a nerve, and so my leg was unsteady. But I grabbed hold of the railing and I went down with, with my body that way, and I laid on the bleachers,” he said.
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