Trump’s shooter identified
Washington: US security agencies have identified 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania as the suspect in the attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump at a campaign rally. Crooks was shot and killed by the US Secret Service seconds after he allegedly fired shots toward a stage where Trump was speaking in Butler.
The FBI said it was working to determine a motive for the attack, in which one rally attendee died and two other spectators were critically injured. Trump was shot in the ear.
State voter records show that Crooks was a registered Republican, according to several US media reports. The FBI named 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks as “the subject involved.” He was shot dead by the Secret Service. He was a registered Republican, according to state voter records.
The upcoming November 5 election would have been the first time Crooks had been old enough to vote in a presidential race. Crooks lived about an hour away from where the shooting took place in Butler. The Federal Aviation Administration said that it closed the airspace over Bethel Park for “special security reasons.”
When Crooks was 17 he made a $15 donation to ActBlue, a political action committee that raises money for left-leaning and Democratic politicians, according to a 2021 Federal Election Commission filing. According to Reuters, the donation was earmarked for the Progressive Turnout Project, a national group that rallies Democrats to vote. Crooks’ father, Matthew Crooks, 53, told CNN that he was trying to figure out what happened and would wait until he spoke to law enforcement before speaking about his son. According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Thomas Crooks graduated in 2022 from Bethel Park High School. He received a $500 “star award” from the National Math and Science Initiative, according to the newspaper. US law enforcement officials said on Saturday that Crooks carried no identification to the site of the shooting and had to be identified using other methods.