White male, 20 years old, from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, about 60 kilometers from the scene of the crime. Name: Thomas Matthew Crooks. The police record of the alleged perpetrator of the attack on Donald Trump on Saturday afternoon at a rally of the former president in the small town of Butler was gradually completed in the hours following the assassination attempt. One of the most relevant details is that the state voter list shows that Crooks was registered as a Republican. And in the upcoming elections on November 5, Crooks would have been able to vote for the first time in a presidential election as he was of legal age. After the shooting, in which Trump was slightly injured, police snipers killed the shooter. In addition, one electoral attendee died immediately and two others were left in critical condition.
He was not always a Republican, according to the few details that have emerged about him. When Crooks was 17, he donated $15 (13.7 euros) to ActBlue, a political action committee that raises money for Democratic and left-wing politicians, according to a 2021 Federal Election Commission filing cited by Reuters. The donation was intended for the Progressive Participation Project, a national group that mobilizes Democrats to vote.
Thomas Crooks graduated in 2022 from Bethel Park High School, according to local media Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He received a “star award” of $500 from the National Math and Science Initiative, according to the same newspaper cited by Reuters.
Crooks’ identification was not immediately apparent after the attempted attack. The shooter was not carrying any identification, authorities said, and had to be identified through other means. Police do not yet know what motive Crooks allegedly used to attack the former president. Crooks’ father, Matthew Crooks, 53, told CNN he was trying to figure out what happened and would wait to speak to authorities before talking about his son, Reuters reported.
The gunman fired from the roof of a nearby industrial building, about 120 metres from the platform where the former president was speaking. He did so from outside the rally grounds. A witness told the BBC that he warned police of the suspect’s presence for several minutes without officers intervening.
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Videos taken by attendees show Secret Service members standing on a structure responding to the shooter’s gunfire. The exchange began as Trump was speaking shortly after 6 p.m. Photos also circulated online of the suspect’s body on the roof after being shot by officers, who later recovered an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, a weapon most commonly used in mass shootings that occur daily across the country.
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