…..What to know about the shooter, A 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks
In a shocking and tragic event on Saturday, July 13, 2024, at a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, former United States President Donald Trump was the target of an assassination attempt.
The alleged shooter, identified by authorities as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, fired multiple shots at the stage where Trump was speaking.
The Shooter: Thomas Matthew Crooks
Thomas Matthew Crooks, a 20-year-old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, has been identified as the assailant.
“When you think about it, it’s a football field and a half … and that is a makeable shot by an individual. And obviously an inch would have made a difference in this case and Trump wouldn’t be with us,” said Pierson, who spent three decades with the Secret Service, much of that on presidential protective operations, before becoming director in 2013.
Crooks managed to fire off numerous rounds, injuring two other people in the crowd, before being killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper sharpshooter from another nearby roof.
The shooting marks the first assassination attempt against a former or current U.S. president since President Ronald Reagan was injured in a March 1981 shooting at a Washington, D.C. hotel. Before that, in 1975 a member of the Manson Family cult tried to shoot President Gerald Ford at close range in Sacramento, California but failed to chamber a round into the gun.
The Secret Service has confirmed that it is investigating how a gunman armed with an AR-15 rifle was able to get close enough to shoot and injure Trump in what appears to be an epic failure of one the agency’s primary duties of protecting VIPs. The FBI, state police and the U.S. Congress also will be seeking to answer the many swirling questions.
Some of those questions: How did Donald Trump’s would-be assassin gain a high-ground vantage point to fire off a potentially fatal head shot against the former president? Why didn’t Secret Service counter-sniper teams neutralize Crooks before he got off so many rounds from his high-powered rifle, killing one Trump rally-goer and injuring two others?
Also, if Crooks had been flagged by local authorities for acting suspiciously as some media have reported, why was he then able to climb atop a nearby building with a rifle, firing a shot that grazed Trump’s ear? And why did Secret Service agents allow Trump to stand back up defiantly and do three fist-pumps when it wasn’t clear that the threat had been fully neutralized?
Could this have been stopped before it started?
John Miller, a former senior FBI and New York Police Department official, said on CNN that Crooks had been observed acting suspiciously near the magnetometers, or metal detectors stationed outside the event by local law enforcement agencies.
Those officials then shared those concerns with the Secret Service and other authorities “and people had his description and were looking around for him,” said Miller, who’s currently a CNN analyst.
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At some point, Miller said, Crooks “left the magnetometer area. And then at some point, people start to point out there’s a guy who’s climbing on that roof, and he has a rifle and police are putting that over the radio.”
According to some video and media reports, the Secret Service counter-sniper on a nearby rooftop was aiming at the shooter, perhaps before he took some or all of his shots.
“The counter sniper appears to be looking through his scope as if he’s scanning for something. … And then, when the shots are fired, takes out the shooter from his position almost immediately,” said Miller, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of Intelligence & Counterterrorism until 2022. “So we have to fill in those gaps. What happened during those seconds? What were the communications? What did he see through the scope, and did he act at his first opportunity? And we’ll learn that later.”
Miller said the counter-sniper succeeded in eliminating the threat quickly. “That part worked,” he said. But, he added, “What about the front end? Could this have been stopped with faster or more clear communications or a more intense search?”
Investigations have already begun
It’s possible and even likely that the Secret Service security plan for the rally, in conjunction with local and state authorities, took into consideration the building from which Crooks allegedly sprayed bullets. It could have been locked down from the inside, prompting Crooks to have to climb to the roof from the outside as part of the security plan put in place by authorities before the rally.
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But the entire sequence of events will be investigated to find out what went so wrong that Crooks was able to gain access to the roof of the building, including whether he might have surveilled the site ahead of time to find the best way up, according to current and former law enforcement officials.
[USA TODAY]
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