TAUNTON — Judith Conlan drove from her home in Somerset to share her appreciation for former president Donald Trump with drivers circling the Taunton Green.
“It’s not far to travel for a man who took a bullet for us,” Conlan said.
She was one of about a dozen people who stood in the shade on a sweltering Sunday afternoon holding signs and flags in support of Trump, a day after the former president had his right ear grazed in an assassination attempt during a rally in Pennsylvania. A supporter at that rally was shot and killed; two others were critically injured.
Conlan said she watched the rally on TV and heard the shots, thinking they were firecrackers.
“All of a sudden he grabbed his ear and went down,” she said. “I was very afraid. I thought the worst.”
Public officials call for thoughts and prayers
According to USA Today reports, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was injured after a rooftop sniper opened fire on the rally with an AR-15-style rifle. Secret Service agents shot and killed the gunman, later identified by the FBI as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Initial reports show Crooks is a registered Republican. His motive is under investigation.
The shocking public attack, which recalled the near-assassination of President Ronald Reagan in 1981, has elicited sympathy and offers of thoughts and prayers from all political corners, Democratic leaders included, and condemnations of politically motivated violence.
President Joe Biden called for national unity at a short White House news conference Sunday and said he spoke with Trump briefly on Saturday night and, "I'm sincerely grateful that he's doing well and recovering." Biden also said he would address the nation from the Oval Office on Sunday night.
Massachusetts State Police issued a press release indicating that while there is no known connection or threat to the Bay State, “Out of an abundance of caution, MSP has increased presence in highly trafficked areas across the Commonwealth.”
Former Bristol County sheriff Thomas Hodgson, who chairs Trump’s 2024 re-election campaign in Massachusetts, spoke with The Herald News while traveling to the Republican National Convention, which begins this week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“He’s a giant of a man who is not afraid of anything, and that’s what bothers the elite in Washington, D.C.,” Hodgson said. “It only reaffirmed to the American people that this is a man who doesn’t care about the politics of all this. He doesn’t need this job. He loves America and he loves the challenge of being able to give back to the people of our neighborhoods, our kids, our grandkids, our American way of life that we’ve lost.”
'That should never happen in America'
In Taunton, Kayla Churchill, the Massachusetts Trump campaign’s senior director of volunteers, organized a stand-out in support of Trump via Facebook. Along corners of Taunton Green, supporters erected signs with messages like “ULTRA MAGA” and life-size standees of the former president.
“He’s working for free for us, and now he just took a bullet for us,” Churchill said. “The least we can do is come out here and show our support.”
Supporters held signs and flags in view of the traffic, and among themselves aired their grievances about economic policy and immigration law, shared their theories about why the attack happened. Some drivers passing by honked horns in apparent support. A few drivers shouted profanity.
Churchill said while she’s a political conservative and strong Trump supporter, she deplores political violence, and she was shaken by the idea of a political leader being shot at during a rally — even if it were the current Democratic president, she said.
"I might not do a standout if it’s for Biden, but this shouldn’t happen,” Churchill said. “This is America and we shouldn’t have any president, candidate, elected official ever be in a position where they’re going to be shot on stage in front of families.”
Churchill noted that a man was killed by a bullet apparently meant for Trump.
“He got his head blown off in front of his family," Churchill said. “His kids were there. His family was there. That’s not the America that I want. ... I don’t care who’s standing up there. That should never happen in America.”
Blaming heated rhetoric for assassination attack
Several attendees blamed the 2024 presidential campaign’s heated rhetoric for riling people up, laying it at the feet of the political left. Churchill said Biden should feel responsible, or at least retract a statement he made on July 8, where Biden told donors, “We're done talking about the debate. It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”
“What do you mean by that, other than kill him?” Churchill said. "Not even a week later, this happens?”
“It absolutely makes sense that something like this would happen when they’ve been demonizing the guy for seven or eight years, saying he’s Hitler, saying he’s a dictator, saying he’s a danger to democracy,” said Conlan.
Churchill said she believes as a Christian that Trump’s surviving the attack was “divine intervention.” The former president, no stranger to heated rhetoric himself, also stated on his TruthSocial network that “God alone” saved him from assassination.
"If he just didn’t look at the chart, the big chart he had up, he would have been shot on TV," Churchill said. “And I get people on Facebook and they’re like, ‘Oh too bad they missed.’ So what, he gets his head blown off? How is that going to make America look? What about the children in the audience? What about the kids at home?
“I don’t even want to see Biden get his head blown off, and I hate him.”
Dan Medeiros can be reached at dmedeiros@heraldnews.com. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Herald News today.
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