By EFE
14 Jul 2024, 16:59 PM EDT
Around thirty people gathered early in the morning outside the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York to show their solidarity and hold a vigil for former President Donald Trump following the attack he suffered on Saturday at a rally in Pennsylvania.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) has increased security measures at the iconic building in downtown New York City, despite the fact that the former US president is not inside and that authorities have assured that there are no “credible threats” there or anywhere else in the city.
“I’m going to stay all night,” Lynda Andrews, a woman wearing a Trump cap and carrying an American flag, told The New York Times.
Andrews, originally from Pennsylvania, said she was “in shock” when she saw what happened, but when she saw him raising his fist with his face covered in blood, she thought, “This is my guy,” and decided to approach Trump Tower to show her support.
Another person who approached the place was Christine Randall, who walked up to the doors of the building wearing a cap with the phrase “Make America Great Again” and carrying a flag with the slogan “Take America Back.”
Randall told the same newspaper that he thought Trump “maybe had died” and began to “cry”; but that when he saw him get up he was “very happy.”
Several Trump supporters also visited Mar-a-Lago, the Trump family’s residence in Florida, according to local US media.
Trump relaxes at his New Jersey resort
The former president arrived in Newark, New Jersey, after midnight and disembarked from his private plane on his own two feet and in apparent good condition, according to images shown by Fox News.
Dressed in a blue suit and no tie, Trump walked down the steps of his private plane and even waved to a few people on the tarmac.
Despite having been wounded just hours earlier, Trump appeared completely normal as he got off the plane, and was then taken to his resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he spent the night.
For now, nothing should prevent the former president from attending his party’s convention this week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which is expected to officially crown him the Republican presidential candidate.
Attacker, registered Republican voter
Authorities are continuing an investigation to learn more details about the attack on Trump, who was wounded in the right ear in a shooting that occurred shortly after he began his speech at a rally in Pennsylvania.
The attacker, identified by the FBI as a white man in his 20s who goes by the name of Thomas Mathiew Crooks, was shot dead by Secret Service agents after his shots, in addition to wounding the former president, killed an aide and left two others in the audience seriously injured.
An AR-15 semi-automatic rifle was recovered at the crime scene, and investigators are already searching Crooks’ residence for a motive.
According to The Intercept, Crooks was registered as a Republican on the voter rolls, even though, when he was 17, he made a $15 donation to a Democratic Party-related election committee on the day Joe Biden became president of the United States in January 2021.
Keep reading:
- Biden says Trump attack was an “assassination attempt” and will speak in the Oval Office
- Victim of bullying and seen at a shooting club: the young man who shot Trump is described
- Deadly victim identified after Trump attack in Pennsylvania