Interpreting user-generated recordings from the Trump assassination attempt on July 13, 2024

Handheld smartphones are common at public events, and this increases the likelihood that user-generated recordings (UGRs) may capture sounds of interest to audio forensic investigations. The assassination attempt against presidential candidate Donald Trump that took place in Bulter, PA, on Saturday, July 13, 2024, is a prominent example, with a dozen or more official and user-generated videos of the incident. Audio forensic expertise is called upon to determine the physical meaning of the recorded material and to ascertain its authenticity. In the Trump rally shooting incident, multiple concurrent recordings were made from different positions around the scene, capturing the sounds of several audible gunshots. The set of multiple UGR recordings provides information useful to the forensic investigation, such as spatial information about the number, type, position, and orientation of firearms. Examination of the multiple recordings from the Trump rally incident requires interpretation of unsynchronized audio from locations that are not precisely known. Nevertheless, acoustical information obtained from user-generated material at the Trump incident provides essential corroborative information. Examples are presented showing the audio forensic analysis principles applied to the UGR evidence.