Two men who were shot when a gunman tried to kill former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania said the U.S. Secret Service failed them and Trump that day in July and was negligent in its security response.
Jim Copenhaver, 74, and David Dutch, 57, told NBC News in an exclusive interview Monday that they were excited to be at the rally and sitting in the stands behind the former president before the gunfire erupted and they were hit.
Both men said they believed the Secret Service and law enforcement officials were negligent in fulfilling their duty to protect a former president and innocent citizens.
“I believe there was 100% negligence by the Secret Service, probably by everyone involved in setting up that security, down to interdepartmental communications,” Dutch said. “The negligence was great. It was terrible.”
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‘I’m sure there was negligence. It wouldn’t have happened if it was safe,” Copenhaver said.
When asked if he believed the Secret Service had failed him and the former president, Dutch replied: “Big time.”
“The whole security setup was bad,” he said.
The men’s attorneys said they plan to file charges and are in the early stages of determining who they will pursue a case against.
Copenhaver and Dutch were seriously injured in the July 13 shooting at the Trump campaign rally in Butler. Copenhaver was shot in the triceps and abdomen, and Dutch was hit in the liver.
“It was like being hit in the chest with a sledgehammer,” Dutch said, adding that he saw pieces of the bleachers and metal “flying around” until the shooting stopped.
Copenhaver said he didn’t realize what was happening until he saw part of his sleeve blown off.
“I turned to my friend and said, ‘I think I got shot,’ and then I got the second one and I went down,” he said, adding that he fell into the stands and couldn’t get back up .
Dutch and Copenhaver said the shooting has left them with ongoing health problems.
Copenhaver said he has lost 30 pounds and now has to walk with a cane. He still has occasional pain in his stomach.
Dutch said he still needs help treating his gunshot wound. He lost 25 pounds and can’t drive or lift more than 10 pounds, he said.
“I never thought I would end up in this position,” he said. “Most of the time I was the other guy helping other people.”
“It’s a battle every day,” Dutch said.
Another man, Corey Comperatore, 50, was killed in the shooting while protecting his family. Trump injured his ear.
A Secret Service sniper shot and killed the 20-year-old gunman, who had fired from the roof of a building about 450 feet from where the former president spoke.
The assassination attempt raised alarm about the Secret Service and security lapses that allowed the gunman to fire eight shots at the former president.
Kimberly Cheatle, then director of the Secret Service, resigned this summer after lawmakers called on her to resign.
Last month, the “initial mission assurance report,” compiled by the Secret Service’s own internal investigators, found that poor planning and poor interagency communication caused the security problems that made the assassination attempt possible.
Dutch said he was “angry” during the shooting about the security failure that failed to prevent the incident and the fact that someone “tried to shoot the president and shot into a defenseless crowd.”
“I was just angry that the whole situation even happened. It should never have happened,” he said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
