Butler rally survivor Jim Copenhaver dies at 76, lawsuit pending

James Copenhaver, one of the two men who survived gunshot wounds in the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, died on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at the age of 76, with his lawsuit against the U.S. government still pending.

The death was first reported on Thursday by Ken Silva, the editor of Headline USA, who wrote that he was informed of it that morning and that a source close to the family confirmed it but declined to give further details. House Republicans confirmed the death in a post on X the same day. No cause has been released.

Copenhaver lived in Moon Township, in western Pennsylvania. He was hit twice in the crowd at the Butler Farm Show Grounds, once in his left triceps and once in the abdomen, and bullet fragments were still lodged in his body at the time of his death.

What the June lawsuit says

Copenhaver and David Dutch, the other man wounded by gunfire in the crowd, filed separate but similar lawsuits against the United States in June 2026. The complaints quote Senate findings that the Secret Service's conduct amounted to a cascade of preventable failures. The complaint sets out the operations Copenhaver went through afterward.

Copenhaver's wife, Marianne, remains a party to his case, according to Headline USA. She is seeking compensation for what the complaint calls the Secret Service's security failures at the rally.

According to the lawsuit, Copenhaver was required to undergo numerous surgeries, including closure of a traumatic abdominal wall hernia, a laparotomy and laceration repair, after a bullet transected his colon.

The wounds did not heal. He walked with a cane, had nerve damage and numbness in his left leg, and could not lie on his stomach. For the two years between the rally and his death he was dealing with injuries doctors could not reverse.

Copenhaver had spoken publicly about the shooting and about the security lapses he believed occurred that day. He wrote the foreword to Silva's book "The Trump Assassination Plots," published in May 2026, and used it to ask how he would be remembered.

The man from Moon Township

Copenhaver had raised a family, worked for more than 30 years and played in a band on the side, as he wrote in the foreword. He was 74 on the day of the shooting and 76 when he died.

A year after the rally he told KDKA that the shrapnel in his pelvis might never be removed.

The statement from House Republicans said the party was deeply saddened by his passing and that he had been gravely wounded in the shooting in Butler. It said he endured unimaginable hardship with strength and perseverance, and that members were mourning with his family and praying for them.

Trump, then a candidate for president, was grazed in the ear by one of the shots fired at the Butler Farm Show Grounds.

What happened on the rooftop

Thomas Crooks, 20, fired at Trump with a semi-automatic rifle from a nearby rooftop, grazing his ear, The Daily Beast reported. He fatally shot one audience member and seriously injured two others, including Copenhaver. A Secret Service sniper killed Crooks at the scene.

The shooting began at 6:11 p.m. on July 13, 2024, at the Butler Farm Show Grounds in Connoquenessing Township and Meridian, near Butler. The weapon recovered at the site was a DPMS Panther Arms A-15 semi-automatic rifle, the FBI's published photographs of the scene show.

Pennsylvania State Police identified three rally attendees who were shot: Comperatore, Copenhaver and Dutch. Trump was struck in the ear and four officers were hurt by debris. Two people died that day, Comperatore and the gunman.

More than two years on, no motive has been established. The FBI's Butler investigation updates page has carried nothing new since August 2024.

Dutch, who was 57 at the time of the shooting, is now the only one of the three people shot in the crowd at Butler who is still living.

Three people in the crowd

Corey Comperatore, 50, a former chief of the Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Company, was killed at the rally. Dutch, a Marine veteran from New Kensington, was shot once, and Copenhaver was shot twice. Those three were the people in the crowd struck by the gunfire, and until Wednesday two of them were alive.

Dutch also had multiple surgeries, among them repair of his liver, Headline USA reported. Like Copenhaver, he will have to continue to undergo rehabilitation for the rest of his life. The injuries of both men are described in the June complaint.

Dutch and his wife are parties to Dutch's own suit against the United States, and Marianne Copenhaver to her husband's. All are seeking compensation.

What has not been released

No cause of death has been made public. The source who confirmed the death to Headline USA declined to provide more details, and the family has not released details of the circumstances. WPXI, reporting the death on Thursday, said the cause had not yet been released.

In the foreword to Silva's book, Copenhaver wrote about what the shooting left behind. He described a bullet lodged next to his spine and numbness running from just beneath the kneecap to the hip area of his left leg.

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.

Marianne Copenhaver and the Dutches remain plaintiffs against the United States, seeking compensation for damages they attribute to Secret Service security failures at Butler. What effect Copenhaver's death has on the claim he filed in June was not addressed in the statements issued on Thursday.