Shooting at Donald Trump rally: What we know of the shooter so far

Who was the shooter?

The shooter has been identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania by the FBI. Crooks was a registered Republican, according to the state’s voter records accessed by Reuters. He lived about an hour away from the where the shooting took place in Butler, Reuters reported.

The police added they have not yet identified the official motive.

According to the New York Times, Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022. He received a $500 ‘star award’, from the National Math and Science Initiative, as per the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Officials told the news outlet that Crooks does not have a criminal history according to the Pennsylvania’s public court records.

A 2021 Federal Election Commission filing shows that when Crooks was 17 years old, he made a USD 15 donation to ActBlue, which is a “political action committee that raises money for left-leaning and Democratic politicians”, as per a 2021 Federal Election Commission filing quoted by Reuters. The donation was reportedly meant for the Progressive Turnout Project, a national group that rallies Democrats to vote.

The suspect’s father, Mathew Crooks, 53, said in an interview with the CNN that he was trying to figure out what happened and would speak to the law enforcement agencies before commenting, the Reuters report said.

Security officials have told CBS News that the suspect fired from between 200 ft and 300 ft away on an elevated shed with an AR-style rifle.

A person who claimed to be an eyewitness, in an interview with the BBC, said he saw a man armed with a rifle crawling up a roof near the event. The person said he and the people he was with started pointing at the man, trying to alert security.

The shots appeared to have come from outside the area secured by the Secret Service, the security agency said.

What have the police said?

The US police has appealed to public for information and any mobile phone footage of the attack.

The FBI in a news conference said that they were “still working through the security apparatus that the Secret Service had in place, what potentially happened.” Special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh office Kevin Rojek said it was “surprising” the gunman was able to fire multiple shots.

He added that there is going to be a long investigation into exactly what took place and how the individual was able to get access to the location, what type of weapon he had.”

“It’s primarily standard procedure of any suspicious packages, In this case, there was identification of a suspicious package around where the shooter was and so we deployed, in an abundance of caution, bomb assets to make sure those were cleared for investigators to move safely in the area,” he said.