James Copenhaver, Wounded at 2024 Trump Butler Rally, Dies at 76

James Copenhaver, one of two rallygoers wounded when a gunman opened fire on Donald Trump's Butler, Pennsylvania campaign event in July 2024, died Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at Allegheny Health Network's West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh. He was 76.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said Copenhaver died "from complications stemming from those wounds," referring to the injuries he suffered on July 13, 2024, when 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks fired from a nearby rooftop. One round grazed Trump's right ear. Another struck Copenhaver in the triceps; a third hit his abdomen, tearing through his colon and leaving bullet fragments and nerve damage that never fully healed, according to CBS News and the Guardian.

Copenhaver's family, in a statement released through attorney Joseph Feldman and reported by Fox News, the Guardian and NPR affiliate WHRO, did not explicitly confirm that his death was caused by the 2024 shooting. The statement described him as a "devoted husband, father, and grandfather" and an Army veteran, and said he "embodied the very best traits of our great nation." One official source ties the death directly to the wounds, while the people closest to Copenhaver left the cause unstated.

Corey Comperatore, a volunteer firefighter, was killed at the same rally while shielding his wife and daughter from gunfire. David Dutch, the other wounded attendee, survived. Crooks was killed on the rooftop by a Secret Service counter-sniper team within seconds of opening fire.

Trump posted a tribute to Copenhaver on Truth Social Thursday, calling him "a true American Patriot" and "a tremendous loss." "After being wounded while protecting his family, Jim showed tremendous bravery, courageously continuing to FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT, and maintaining a positive spirit despite unimaginable hardships," Trump wrote, extending condolences to Copenhaver's wife, Marianne. The House Republican Conference posted a similar tribute on X, saying members were "deeply saddened" and that Copenhaver "endured unimaginable hardship with strength and perseverance."

Slippery Rock Mayor Jondavid Longo, who was present at the rally, wrote on X that Copenhaver "survived that day, but he never fully recovered from the wounds. For two years he lived with surgeries, remaining fragments, and pain that never left him."

In June, Copenhaver and his wife sued the federal government, alleging the Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security "utterly failed" to secure the rally site. Dutch filed a similar suit. Copenhaver's complaint described his injuries — including the colon transection, kidney damage and permanent loss of feeling in his leg — as "debilitating, grievous, permanent and life altering," according to the Guardian and Epoch Times. Those lawsuits remain pending in federal court; Copenhaver's death does not resolve them, and it is not yet clear whether his estate will continue the litigation.

The shooting itself remains a live political flashpoint more than two years later. Trump has publicly claimed the attempt on his life was a "Democrat Plot" to remove him from the 2024 race, and has accused former FBI Director Christopher Wray of mishandling the investigation, according to Breitbart's reporting on Trump's Truth Social posts. Those are Trump's own allegations. No source here documents a filed charge, indictment, or announced federal investigation establishing coordination behind Crooks' attack, and no evidence for the "plot" claim appears in the reporting reviewed. Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, has separately noted that "the American people still know very little about Thomas Crooks" more than two years on, pointing to unresolved questions about the shooter's motive and background. Reporting indicates Crooks used an alias, "Bob Dole," to receive packages, and that an anonymous donor paid for his cremation shortly after his death, as Fox News reported.

Whether those open threads get answered likely now depends on what surfaces in Copenhaver and Dutch's civil suits against the Secret Service and DHS, where discovery could force federal agencies to disclose internal records about the security failures at Butler that neither congressional hearings nor Trump's own social media posts have fully aired.