Jim Copenhaver, Wounded at Trump's Butler Rally, Dies at 76

Jim Copenhaver, the Moon Township man shot twice at Donald Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, has died. House Republicans confirmed his death in a post on X on September 24, 2026. A cause of death has not been released.

Copenhaver was 76. Headline USA reporter Ken Silva, who reported the death, wrote that he was told Thursday morning and that a source close to the family confirmed it but declined to provide more details at that point. Copenhaver died on Wednesday, September 23, 2026.

He was one of two spectators who were hit by gunfire and survived. Corey Comperatore, 50, a former fire chief, was killed.

The confirmation came in a post on X

The statement from House Republicans read: "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 post went up on September 24, 2026, more than two years after the shooting. Copenhaver's family has not released details surrounding his death.

For most of the country, the names attached to that afternoon in Butler have blurred into one event. There were three: Comperatore, who died, and Copenhaver and David Dutch, who did not. Copenhaver's name has stayed in the public record mostly because of a lawsuit filed in June 2026, not because of anything he sought out.

Two bullets, and the fragments that stayed in

Copenhaver was shot twice: once in his left triceps and once in the abdomen, according to the Headline USA report. He went through multiple surgeries over the following two years.

Bullet fragments remained lodged in his body until the day he died. He walked with a cane and had lost feeling in his left leg.

That is the part of these stories that tends to disappear once the news cycle moves. A man is listed as "injured" in a wire dispatch on a Saturday night, and the word covers the next two years of his life without describing any of it. Copenhaver's two years included operating rooms, rehabilitation, and metal he could not get out.

What he wrote about his left leg

Copenhaver described the damage himself. He wrote that he had raised a family and worked for more than 30 years, playing in a band on the side, and had started to wonder how he would be remembered. He got his answer on July 13, 2024, though as he put it, "taking a bullet meant for the President wasn't exactly what I had in mind."

"With a bullet lodged next to my spine, I'm going to have a diminished usage of my left leg for the rest of my life. It's numb from just beneath the kneecap to the hip area. It just doesn't feel like my leg. I guess that's the price of making history," he wrote of his condition.

There is no self-pity in it and no politics in it either. A guy in his seventies, a working life behind him, a band on weekends, explaining that half of one leg stopped belonging to him at a campaign rally.

The lawsuit against the United States

In June 2026, Copenhaver and Dutch filed separate but similar lawsuits against the United States. The complaints quote Senate findings that the Secret Service's conduct amounted to a "cascade of preventable failures."

Copenhaver's wife, Marianne, is still a party to his lawsuit. Dutch and his wife are parties to Dutch's. They are seeking compensation for what they say were the Secret Service's security failures.

The case is a civil claim for money damages, not a criminal proceeding, and nothing in it has been decided. What it does is put the question of who was watching that roofline into a courtroom, where somebody has to answer it under oath rather than in a press conference.

David Dutch, the other man who was shot

Dutch, who was 57 at the time, is a Marine veteran from New Kensington. He was shot once.

He also went through multiple surgeries, including one to repair his liver, and he will continue to need rehabilitation for the rest of his life, according to the Headline USA report on Copenhaver's death.

Two men from western Pennsylvania who drove out to a farm show ground on a summer Saturday to see a candidate speak. Both of them left with permanent injuries. Both of them ended up plaintiffs against their own federal government. Neither of them chose any part of that.

Corey Comperatore

Comperatore, 50, was killed in the assassination attempt. He was a former chief of the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company, and his death is the one most Americans remember from that day.

Pennsylvania State Police identified three rally attendees who were shot: Comperatore, who was killed, and Copenhaver and Dutch, who survived. Trump was struck in the ear, and four officers were hurt by debris.

That count has not changed since 2024. Copenhaver's death is not part of them, because no official finding has connected it to his wounds.

What happened at 6:11 p.m. on July 13, 2024

The shooting took place at the Butler Farm Show Grounds in Connoquenessing Township and Meridian, near Butler, Pennsylvania, at 6:11 p.m. Eastern time.

The shooter was Thomas Crooks. He fired a DPMS Panther Arms A-15 semi-automatic rifle. He was killed at the scene.

His motive remains unknown as of September 2026. Two years and two federal administrations of scrutiny later, the central question of why a 20-year-old climbed onto a roof with a rifle still has no answer on the record.

The FBI's Butler investigation page, which includes a photograph of the rifle as it was recovered at the shooting site, has carried nothing new since August 2024.

What has not been said

Copenhaver's cause of death has not been released. The family has not released the circumstances. The source close to the family who confirmed the death declined to say more.

Anyone telling you they know what killed him is guessing. What is documented is that he had been living with the effects of his wounds, including fragments still in his body, up to his death.

Headline USA reported that his lawsuit continues without him. Marianne Copenhaver remains a party to it, and Dutch and his wife to Dutch's own suit; neither claim has been resolved.

The part of Butler that outlasted the news cycle

The Butler rally produced one of the most reproduced photographs in modern American politics, and then the country moved to the next thing. The men in the bleachers did not get to move. Copenhaver had surgeries. Dutch had his liver repaired. Both were told the rehabilitation would not end.

Copenhaver wrote that he used to wonder how he would be remembered, and that July 13, 2024, gave him an answer he had not asked for. He called it the price of making history.

He was 76 years old. He spent the last two years of his life carrying pieces of a rifle round that was not aimed at him.