CHIACGO — FBI officials say Saturday’s deadly shooting at a rally for former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania is being investigated as an attempted assassination and as a possible act of domestic terrorism.
The shooting left one person, a former fire chief, dead and two others critically wounded. Trump was also wounded in the shooting.
People in Chicago reacting to Saturday’s shooting said they hope the incident doesn’t lead to greater division in America.
“We just had arrived, yeah. Yeah we actually, my partner’s brother had messaged us we thought it was hoax, because he said Trump had been shot in the ear. It was crazy, quite extraordinary,” David Bloomfield, who is visiting Chicago from Canberra, Australia said.
Bloomfield, who is traveling around the U.S. for nine weeks, said the tension amongst Americans is palpable.
“It’s kind of terrifying, but it’s also, I think, has a really strong, kind of, metaphorical resonance as well, because I think everyone here, from our travels, we really felt that it’s a country that’s very much divided against itself at the moment, and that just heightens the escalations and the feeling that there is sort of, not necessarily on the brink of civil war, but there’s some real tension that can’t be tamped down at the moment,” Bloomfield said.
It is unclear though how the shooting will impact the race itself.
I thought a lot about that in the last few hours. It’s really, really, hard to say because I think there is certainly a view that it will galvanize Trump supporters, although I think they’re like that already,” Bloomfield said.
Others say the seeds of unity need to be sewn much faster.
“What happened should not have happened. We all have to live together,” Chicago resident Jim Szczepanski said.
Both former President Trump and President Biden made calls for unity on Sunday, with the Republican National Convention only hours away and a contentious election quickly approaching,
Some lawmakers are also weighing in, calling for peace and a path forward.
“And so I would ask that we have almost a day of prayer, stop it, you know, stop all that inflammatory language and stop the cultural violence,” Congressman Jonathan Jackson said.