Donald Trump was shot in the ear in an apparent assassination attempt by a gunman at a campaign rally on July 13, in a chaotic and shocking incident ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. While the incident has left everyone shocked, it can potentially change the course of the upcoming elections.
Many celebrities including President Joe Biden — who is also Trump’s opponent for the upcoming presidential race — and tech mogul Elon Musk condemned the attack. Deemed an “assassination attempt“, the case is being investigated by the FBI. The officials have reportedly the shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks. Here’s all we know about him.
Who Is Thomas Matthew Crooks, The Man Who Shot Donald Trump?
According to US media, the FBI identified Donald Trump’s shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks. A native of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, the 20-year-old was named by the FBI “as the subject involved in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump”.
Crooks, armed with an AR-style rifle, was killed by Secret Service personnel after he fired multiple shots at the stage from an “elevated position outside of the rally venue”. The gunman was on a rooftop approximately “200 to 250 yards” from where the former US president was addressing his supporters, as per the US media.
According to a rally attendee named Ben Macer, he was up along the fence line and “saw the guy move from roof to roof”, CBS News reported. “When I turned around to go back to where I was, it was when the gunshots started, and then it was just chaos, and we all came running away, and that was that,” he said.
It was also recently revealed that Gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks lived about an hour away from the rally venue.
With blood all over his face, the 78-year-old former president was hurried from the platform following the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, while the gunman and a bystander were killed and two spectators critically injured.
The FBI said it was working to determine a motive for the attack. State voter records show that Crooks was a registered Republican. The upcoming Nov. 5 election would have been the first time Crooks had been old enough to vote in a presidential race.
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What Else Do We Know About Gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks?
According to state court records, Thomas Matthew Crooks was born on September 20, 2003. Records show that he has never been sued or had a criminal record in Pennsylvania. There is no entry for him in federal court records either.
Voter records reveal that Crooks’ residential address is in Bethel Park, a suburb of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Matthew and Mary Crooks, who seem to be his parents, have owned the three-bedroom brick house since 1998.
Thomas Crooks graduated two years ago from Bethel Park High School, according to an online video of the ceremony, and was included in a 2022 local news article about recipients of a National Math & Science Initiative Star Award at the public high school, which enrolls about 1,300 students.
Law enforcement is following up on a “number of suspicious occurrences,” said Lt. Col. George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police, including accounts from witnesses who said they tried to flag police about the activity of a person outside the rally moments before the shooting.
The FBI said in a news release that the situation “remains an active and ongoing investigation, and anyone with information that may assist with the investigation is encouraged to submit photos or videos online at FBI.gov/butler or call 1-800-CALL-FBI.”
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