Witnesses at the event described the situation as “bloody” and chaotic, with people battling with the throng of people while attempting to provide first treatment to those injured in the gunfire.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot and killed by Secret Service officials on the site on Saturday, according to the authorities. Crooks was the gunman who attacked former US President Donald Trump.
In an early Sunday morning announcement, the FBI identified Crooks as a resident of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, which is approximately 35 miles south of Butler, the location of Trump’s speech.
Law enforcement officials claim that Crooks fired at Trump from the rooftop of a nearby building outside the rally’s security perimeter before the Secret Service killed him.
Witnesses at the event described the situation as “bloody” and chaotic, with people battling with the throng of people while attempting to provide first treatment to those injured in the gunfire.
The shooting left one rally attendee dead and two others in critical condition, authorities said. Trump was injured, writing on social media that he’d been hit by a bullet in the upper part of his ear – though his campaign said he was otherwise fine. Trump flew back to Newark, New Jersey, late Saturday night.
Now attention turns to the active and ongoing investigation, which involves multiple federal and state bodies. The FBI has urged members of the public to submit any information they have through a tip line or the agency website, including photos or videos of the shooting.
Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022, according to a local media report and a video of the school’s commencement.
He was registered to vote as a Republican, according to a listing in Pennsylvania’s voter database that matched his name, age, and a Bethel Park address that law enforcement was searching Saturday night and is linked to Crooks in public records.
This year’s presidential election would have been the first he was old enough to vote in.
Federal Election Commission records show that a donor listed as Thomas Crooks with the same address gave $15 to a Democratic-aligned political action committee called the Progressive Turnout Project in January 2021.
When reached by CNN late Saturday night, Crooks’ father, Matthew Crooks, said he was trying to figure out “what the hell is going on” but would “wait until I talk to law enforcement” before speaking about his son.
After being killed at the scene, Crooks didn’t have any identification on his body, so agents had to “run his DNA and get biometric confirmation,” Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, said at a press conference Saturday night before the gunman was named.