'I was under the table waiting to see if a gunman would start shooting': Witness at Washington Hilton describes chaos as shots ring out

I had just put my knife and fork down, and almost didn't notice the booming sounds coming from somewhere in front of me in the direction of the main entrance to the ballroom at the Washington Hilton. Then I felt the head of my colleague, Daniel, who I had just been speaking to, brush past and I realised he was diving for the floor. I was on my knees, under the table cloth, almost certain that here I was, another Saturday night, another presidential event, and in the midst of yet another shooting. I was there in Butler, Pennsylvania in July 2024 when the president came within inches of losing his life. Another colleague told me how, as the shots rang out, he saw dozens of people running into the ballroom from the corridor outside. For the five or ten minutes we stayed under the table, all of us were waiting to see if a gunman had also run into the room and was about to start shooting at the two-and-a half thousand people in attendance at this dinner. A colleague told me how she had seen the Secret Service on the stage behind us, rushing President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and Vice-President JD Vance away. Other agents stood in their helmets and bulletproof vests, with their guns trained on the crowd, looking to see if there were more threats. Just before the dinner, I had seen Health Secretary RFK Jr in a small room by the ballroom. I asked him if he was looking forward to the event, and he told me he was hungry and wanted to get on with it. He was seated at a table not far behind me. And about 30m behind us towards the main doors, FBI Director Kash Patel was on the floor with the rest of us – shielding his girlfriend - as a Secret Service agent ran across the ballroom to his aid. Immediately, your mind goes to the what, the why and - in this case - especially the how. How could a gunman have got close to the president, again? All the roads had been closed around the Hilton for hours, blocked off by law enforcement. But the security at the venue itself wasn't particularly heavy. The man on the door outside only took a cursory look at my ticket from what must have been six feet away. We took the lift down to the ballroom, and an agent wanded me but wasn't particularly interested in the bleeps set off by the contents of my inside jacket pocket. They did not ask me to turn out my belongings.