Mentalist Oz Pearlman, who had been performing for Trump at the time, later described locking eyes with Trump for a brief moment as the situation unfolded.

“I’ll never forget the image for my whole life,” he said. “We just looked at each other for about two seconds. I thought, ‘Oh no, are we about to die?’”

The gunman was quickly subdued and taken into custody, yet the sh0ck of the moment—and the footage captured inside the room—continued to ripple far beyond the event itself.

The suspect and the motive behind the attack

When much of the online conversation has focused on the viral footage, investigators have been working to understand the individual behind the attack.