Gunman at Trump rally was step ahead of Secret Service, text messages reveal

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

80% : Trump took the podium at 6.03pm, to a roaring crowd.
63% : Crooks had started searching online for information on famous people, including FBI director Christopher Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland, President Joe Biden and Trump.
48% : So, at 4.26pm, he texted his colleagues about the man, who was outside the fenced area of the Butler Fair Show grounds where Trump was to appear.
43% : Trump dived to the ground, and Crooks sent off another round.
40% : Either through luck or preparation, Crooks had found a place on the roof that let him see Trump clearly but also seemed to keep him somewhat hidden from the Secret Service countersnipers.
39% : In the end, Trump was spared not by the vast law-enforcement contingent protecting him, but by chance.
35% : "So, on TV, they're saying Trump was shot at, and he got hit, but I don't believe that," one local police officer said to another 17 minutes after the shooting, in a conversation captured on a body-worn camera.
33% : He researched how far Lee Harvey Oswald was from John F. Kennedy when he fatally shot the president in 1963 - the answer is about 265ft - and managed to climb onto a roof that was about 400ft from Trump at its closest point.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.