Law enforcement authorities have identified the man who made an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
The attack at the Butler, Pa., rally left one spectator dead and critically injured two others. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he was “shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear.”
The FBI said the shooter, who is dead, was identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. A motive was not clear.
The FBI, which called the attack an assassination attempt, said it was trying to determine his motive and asked the public to come forward with anything they know about Crooks. The shooter was killed.
Who was the suspected shooter?
The FBI identified 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks as the suspect in the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
State voter records show that Crooks was a registered Republican, Reuters reported.
When Crooks was 17 he made a $15 donation to ActBlue, a political action committee that raises money for left-leaning and Democratic politicians, Reuters wrote citing a 2021 Federal Election Commission filing.
The donation was earmarked for the Progressive Turnout Project.
Crooks graduated in 2022 from Bethel Park High School and received a $500 “star award” from the National Math and Science Initiative, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Thomas Crooks was armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Multiple witnesses said they saw him before the shooting and alerted authorities. Crooks was positioned on the roof of a building about 130 yards away from the stage where Donald Trump was addressing the rally.
The gunman was immediately “neutralized” by the Secret Service, chief of communications Anthony Guglielmi said.
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