When Paul Jacques learned that former President Donald Trump had been shot at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, he said it was like "time stopped."
In fact, the Attleboro, Massachusetts , resident was so rocked by the news that he decided to make a detour on his family road trip, stopping in Butler to stop at the scene of the crime and take a picture in front of the slightly tattered and wind-whipped American flag hanging from a crane above where Trump stood when shots rang out on Saturday evening.
The shooting killed one and critically injured two others as the businessman suffered a minor ear wound. The shooter was "neutralized" by the Secret Service, killed on the roof atop which he had perched.
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"Time stopped when I heard this moment. My heart sunk. I felt bad, obviously, for the former president, for our country and for Americans," the 53-year-old told TheMirror.com. "No matter where you stand on this, it's not something that should happen to anyone."
He explained, "We were actually just driving across country, and obviously, the tragic news it, and it was on our path, so we punched it in to the GPS and pulled off." He and his wife and their dog had stayed overnight in upstate New York, he said, and Butler wasn't too far out of the way from where they had planned to go.
For Jacques, stopping at the Butler Farm Show, a fairground in the small city about 35 miles north of Pittsburgh, was a way to commemorate the historic moment and give his kids and eventual grandchildren and great-grandchildren a story to pass down through the generations — that their relative had stopped at the place where a former president was almost assassinated.
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"This was a tragic, historic moment. People will say, ‘Where were you that day?’ We were just driving by," he said. "It’s a good moment to stop in, to share that experience with our kids, grandchildren. This will be in their history books going forward, so just [so they can] say, ‘Hey, my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather did this at that point."
But the story is more than just a cool tale to regale friends with at school, he said — it teaches a lesson, too. "It teaches that no matter what political beliefs you have, this is very unAmerican," he said. "It's something that we should, that Americans should, be united in mourning at this moment."
Standing in solidarity, he said, despite political beliefs, is a way to "make sure that going forward, it doesn't happen again." Any attempt on a politician's life is "unAmerican," he said, and any assassination or assassination attempt "is a stain on our flag happening," he said, and it "causes hurt to America."
Both the flag and America are very dear to Jacques, who served two tours in Iraq and who has been a career firefighter in Massachusetts for the past 30 years. "I believe in this country wholly, and as a public servant myself, both for the country as a soldier and also as a firefighter, it's something that — the flag that stands behind us is something that has true meaning to me and to my family."
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