Jim Copenhaver, one of two rally-goers shot during the July 2024 assassination attempt on President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, has died two years later, his body never fully recovering from the bullets that tore through him that day.
House Republican leadership confirmed Copenhaver's death Thursday in a statement posted to X. He was 76 years old. The announcement offered no details about the cause or location of his passing, but Copenhaver had lived with severe, permanent injuries since the shooting at Trump's outdoor rally on July 13, 2024.
That day, a gunman opened fire on the rally stage, grazing President Trump's ear, killing volunteer firefighter Corey Comperatore, and seriously wounding both Copenhaver and fellow attendee David Dutch. Copenhaver took two bullet wounds, one to his triceps and another that shredded part of his colon and lodged inside his body. He spent a week in the hospital before being discharged, but the damage left him with lasting nerve problems that never resolved.
Headline USA Editor Ken Silva, who first reported Copenhaver's death, said the 76-year-old's struggles were well known among those who followed the case. The Washington Examiner reported Silva's account of Copenhaver's condition:
"It was no secret that Jim was dealing with permanent injuries from Butler."
A bullet that entered Copenhaver's midsection took chunks of his colon before stopping somewhere inside his body. The nerve damage that followed was not the kind that heals. For two years, he carried both the metal and the consequences.
Whether his death was directly caused by those injuries remains unclear. Neither the House Republican statement nor available reporting specified a cause of death or disclosed where Copenhaver died. No statement from his family has been made public.
House Republicans posted their tribute on X, calling Copenhaver's wounding part of what they described as a "horrific shooting":
"We are deeply saddened by the passing of Jim Copenhaver, who was gravely wounded in the horrific shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania. Jim endured unimaginable hardship with strength and perseverance. We join his family and loved ones in mourning his loss and praying for them during this difficult time. May he rest in peace."
The statement did not name any specific member of leadership who authorized it. It was posted from the official @HouseGOP account.
Copenhaver's death brings the confirmed toll of the Butler rally shooting to two dead, Copenhaver and Comperatore, along with the wound to President Trump's ear. The status of David Dutch, the other rally attendee seriously injured that day, was not addressed in the announcement.
Comperatore, a volunteer firefighter, was killed at the rally while protecting his loved ones from the gunfire. His death became a symbol of the violence that day and of the ordinary Americans who showed up to hear a president speak and paid for it with their lives and their health.
Copenhaver was not a public figure. He was a man in a crowd who caught a bullet, two of them, and spent the rest of his life dealing with what they did to his body. The shooting made national headlines for what happened to the candidate on stage. Copenhaver's name was a footnote by comparison, even as his suffering continued long after the cameras moved on.
He deserved better than a footnote. So does anyone who shows up to participate in American democracy and gets shot for it.
