Following an attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Secret Service personnel removed him from the stage on Saturday, Crooks arrived at the rally site early on Saturday morning local time, hours before the event was scheduled to start.
He had Trump and President Biden’s pictures saved in his phone.
A senator participating in a Thursday morning briefing later stated that Crooks was seen and deemed suspicious an hour prior to the rally starting, and local police on the scene reported the incident to the Secret Service, providing them with a picture of the young man 26 minutes before the shooter opened fire from the roof of an industrial building.
“He had a range finder and a backpack,” Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) said after Thursday’s briefing, in a statement that called for US Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle to step down.
Authorities say Crooks fired an AR-style rifle at Trump from a rooftop outside the rally security perimeter, killing one person in the crowd and critically injuring two others.
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He was then fatally shot by the Secret Service. Trump was injured. He has said a bullet “pierced” his ear and has been wearing a bandage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, but his campaign has not offered any more details on his injury or treatment.
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Very little information about Crooks’ hobbies and convictions, or what might have motivated him to try the assassination, has come to light in the public despite a thorough investigation that was initiated following the shooting and a barrage of media coverage.
According to people familiar with the investigation, FBI agents swiftly accessed a cellphone they found with Crooks’ body using technology from Cellebrite, a company well-known among law enforcement agencies for helping them access data on phones seized or recovered in criminal investigations.
This information was provided to the Washington Post this week.
Thomas Crooks, shown in a yearbook photo, was shot and died during a Pennsylvania Donald Trump campaign rally.
The home of Crooks, two persons familiar with the matter who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, said that the boy’s upbringing and connection with his parents are also of special interest to investigators as they attempt to grasp his thinking.
Although the young guy lived with his parents, who both have health problems, these sources indicated that detectives had not yet received the impression that they were closely monitoring the young man’s actions or interests in the days and months before the killing.
Crooks, who graduated in May with an associate’s degree in engineering science from the Community College of Allegheny County in western Pennsylvania, had planned to enroll at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh this fall.
As a registered Republican, he did not have a significant online profile or known political activity. He was a strong math student in high school. His guidance counselor described him as quiet, well-behaved, and well-spoken, with a small group of friends.
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