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Rallygoers at the Trump assassination attempt reflect on the incident one year later

Rallygoers at the Trump assassination attempt reflect on the incident one year later
Rallygoers at the Trump assassination attempt reflect on the incident one year later 03:07

A year following the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, people who attended the rally are reflecting on the trauma they faced that day, and the anger and pain they still feel.

It was a day seared in their memories. When the shots rang out, Marcy Braunstein was standing in the front section. She dropped to the ground after she heard the pops.

"I was scared, I was scared to death," Braunstein said, fearing for her life and the life of the then-candidate. "I could hear the gunshots for days on end."

Eileen Cunningham was sitting in the first row, directly in front of the podium. 

"It was really surreal," Cunningham said. "You were really fearful for him."

With Mr. Trump dropping out of sight, behind the podium, Braunstein first assumed the worst.

"I thought they killed him," she said. 

Due to how close she was to the podium, Cunningham said she could hear Mr. Trump and Secret Service agents speaking.

"You heard him say, 'My shoes. I need my shoes.' And we knew he was all right," Cunningham said. "So, it was like instant panic and instant relief at the same time."

Father and fireman Corey Comperatore had been killed. David Dutch and James Copenhaver had been injured. 

"Going home in the car, we were quiet, the three of us, we just didn't know what to say to each other," Braunstein said. "I was traumatized."

 Shane Chesher was in the stands behind Mr. Trump, and can be seen in the background of him speaking.

"I was just overcome with emotion," Chesher said. "It's something that will always be with me. It's something that will be with me, be with my wife. It's just something that will impact us forever."

His life was changed in an "inexplicable way," he said.

"But I can't imagine how it's changed the Comperatores' life."

Braunstein said the fact that someone would shoot Mr. Trump made her angry. Other people who were at the rally told KDKA-TV that they are furious about the security failures that day and that they still don't know more about Thomas Crooks. 

The anger has attached itself to something new over time, Braunstein said. 

"I get angry when I see people online saying that he really didn't get shot," Braunstein said. "I hear people say, the bullet, really - that it was fake. And I responded, 'I was there. It was not fake. It did happen.'"

Cunningham has heard the same thing in person from people who come up to her as she works to register voters. Some say that Mr. Trump staged it, she said.

"It was real hard to even talk to those people, because there was no conversation," Cunningham said. 

She tells those people they should be outraged and have sympathy for everyone involved. 

Braunstein can't get over that some people think the incident was not real.

"I mean, it was televised. He was shot on TV. There was blood on TV. Another man lost his life. People were brutally injured," Braunstein said. "How could they say it didn't happen?"

A year after the shooting, it's what she says stings the most.

"I cried when I was down on the ground. I cried on the way home. I cried when I watched it on the news," Braunstein said. "I think I cry every time I hear someone say that it was fake or that it should have happened, or, 'Gee, we're sorry they missed.'"

For her, what's unbelievable isn't the fact that Mr. Trump was shot, it's the fact that some people don't think he was. 

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