As the shooting at Donald Trump‘s rally in Pennsylvania is being investigated,
the FBI has named Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the subject involved in the assassination attempt.
One attendee was killed and two were critically injured. Trump said on social media that a bullet “pierced the upper part” of his right ear before agents whisked him off stage.
FBI says investigators haven’t identified motive in assassination attempt against Trump but the agency said the investigation remains active and ongoing.
sident Joe Biden, who is running against Trump condemned the incident.
“There’s no place in America for this type of violence,” the president said in public remarks. “It’s sick. It’s sick.”
The officials said the shooter was engaged by members of the U.S. Secret Service counterassault team. The heavily armed tactical team travels everywhere with the president and major party nominees and is meant to confront any active threats while other agents focus on safeguarding and evacuating the person at the center of protection.
Law enforcement recovered an AR-style rifle at the scene, according to a third person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.
A video posted to social media shows the body of a person wearing gray camouflage lying motionless on the roof of a building at AGR International Inc., a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm Show grounds where Trump’s rally was held.
The attack was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. It drew new attention to concerns about political violence in a deeply polarized U.S. less than four months before the presidential election. And it could alter the tenor and security posture at the Republican National Convention, which will begin Monday in Milwaukee.
Many Republicans quickly blamed the violence on Biden and his allies, arguing that sustained attacks on Trump as a threat to democracy have created a toxic environment. They pointed in particular to a comment Biden made to donors on July 8, saying “it’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”
An analysis of more than a dozen videos and photos from the scene of the Trump rally, as well as satellite imagery of the site, shows the shooter was able to get astonishingly close to the stage where the former president was speaking.
In the coming days, much of the focus will shift to the shooter and security lapses. The shooter was not an attendee at the rally and was killed by U.S. Secret Service agents, according to two officials who spoke to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation.
Trump flew to New Jersey after visiting a local Pennsylvania hospital, landing shortly after midnight at Newark Liberty International Airport. Video posted by an aide showed the former president deplaning his private jet flanked by U.S. Secret Service agents and heavily armed members of the agency’s counter assault team — an unusually visible show of force by his protective detail.
Asked at the press conference whether law enforcement did not know the shooter was on the roof until he began firing, Kevin Rojek, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh Field Office, responded that “that is our assessment at this time”
“It is surprising” that the gunman was able to open fire on the stage before the Secret Service killed him, he added.