By Jeremy Roebuck and Gillian McGoldrick — The Philadelphia Inquirer
Federal authorities on Sunday identified a 20-year-old Allegheny County man as the gunman who shot at former president Donald Trump in what they described as an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Western Pennsylvania.
The bureau said Thomas Matthew Crooks, of Bethel Park, was responsible for the attack that left Trump with minor injuries, one spectator dead, and two others critically injured.
Speaking at a news conference earlier Sunday, Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge of the FBI field office in Pittsburgh, said authorities had not yet determined a motive for the shooting, which occurred around 6:15 p.m. Saturday just after Trump had taken the stage at the Butler Farm Show. Crooks, who was registered as a Republican, according to state voter rolls, was killed by a U.S. Secret Service agent shortly after opening fire.
“Our investigators are working tirelessly to identify what that motive was,” Rojek told reporters.
Those updates came as FBI, U.S. Secret Service, and Pennsylvania State Police fanned out across the region in the hours following the incident, which occurred two days before the scheduled start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where the former president is expected to officially accept his party’s nomination.
Trump later said in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, that a bullet “pierced the upper part of my right ear.” His campaign reported he was “fine.” He arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport just after midnight Sunday, flanked by his Secret Service detail and heavily armed members of the agency’s counter assault team, and was expected to spend the evening at his private golf club in nearby Bedminster, N.J.
Investigators said Sunday that they had not received any intelligence indicating a possible threat before the attack and they believed there was no ongoing risk of danger to the area. Authorities recovered an AR-style rifle at the scene, according to the Associated Press. And authorities said they found several suspicious packages around the shooter’s body that have slowed down the processing of the crime scene.
“It was a chaotic scene,” said State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens at the news conference. “Law enforcement acted heroically, quickly identifying and neutralizing the threat.”
Chief among the concerns for investigators in the coming days will be how the shooter gained access to the roof of a building near the Butler Farm Show, from which he carried out his attack, Rojek said.
Asked whether law enforcement failed to provide adequate security for the rally, which drew thousands of spectators, Rojek said authorities were still working determine “what, if any, failures there were.”
“There’s going to be a long investigation into exactly what took place and how the individual was able to get access to the location,” he said.
Investigators urged anyone with information on the suspect or the shooting to share it with the FBI by calling 1-800-CALLFBI or fbi.gov/butler.
