Gay Democrat Ritchie Torres joins calls for investigation into Trump assassination attempt
Richie Torres has called for an investigation into the security failures at the Trump rally (US GOV/Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Gay congressman Ritchie Torres has joined a bipartisan group of US lawmakers calling for an investigation into the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
Republican presidential candidate Trump was speaking at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday (13 July) when a gunman – since named as 20-year-old Thomas Crooks – shot at him.
The bullet narrowly missed Trump’s head, catching the upper part of his ear. The former president was quickly surrounded by Secret Service agents and whisked away from the scene to receive medical treat, but not before defiantly raising his fist to the crowd, who just moments before feared for their lives, and urged them to “Fight, fight fight.”
Crooks was shot dead at the scene by a Secret Service sniper but one person in the crowd was killed and two others seriously injured.
New York Democrat Torres, the first LGBTQ+ Afro-Latino to be elected to legislative office, said: “The security failures surrounding the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate demand an investigation. The federal government must constantly learn from security failures to avoid repeating them, especially when those failures have implications for the nation.”
President Joe Biden condemned the action of the shooter, saying: “There’s no place in America for this kind of violence. It’s sick. It’s one of the reasons why we have to unite this country. We cannot allow this to be happening. We cannot be like this. We cannot condone this.
“The Trump rally should have been able to be conducted peacefully without any problem. The idea that there’s political violence or violence in America like this is just unheard of. It’s just not appropriate. Everybody must condemn it.”
Former president Barack Obama also issued a statement on X/Twitter shortly after the shooting. “There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy,” he wrote.
“Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, we should all be relieved that former president Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics. [Former first lady] Michelle and I are wishing him a quick recovery.”
