Thomas Crooks had recently asked his boss for the day off, telling him that he had ‘something to do’ ahead of traveling to Saturday’s Donald Trump rally in Pennsylvania and shooting the ex-president via Daily Mail.
The would-be assassin told colleagues at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center that he would see them on Sunday. However, a Secret Service agent at the Butler rally ensured that he would be the last person that Crooks saw as he locked eyes with the killer before shooting him dead.
Agents found him in their sights and one pulled the trigger seconds after the 20-year-old shot dead Pennsylvania fire chief Corey Comperatore, critically injured two others and hitting Trump in the right ear after scaling a building 147 yards away.
‘They were looking at him while he was looking at them,’ a senior federal law enforcement official told CNN.
The graphic video depicted Crooks peering intently through the sights of his father’s AR-style weapon and firing towards the rally as onlookers scream from the base of the building. Instantly a second volley of shots is heard and Crooks is pictured lying dead on the roof as those on the ground gasp in horror.
‘The Secret Service don’t f*** around man,’ one exclaims. ‘Holy s***.’
It emerged on Tuesday that the killer penetrated the security area of the rally a full three hours before carrying out his attack, after driving 50 miles north from his home in Bethel Park on the southern outskirts of Pittsburgh.
At 3 pm, he triggered a metal detector and he tried to gain access to the site, and was found to be carrying a rangefinder – a gun sight typically used by hunters and marksmen preparing to shoot at a distance.
However, security officers allowed him in while keeping an eye on him until he left the secure area a short time later, the official said. He then fell off the radar until shortly before 5.45pm when an officer with the Beaver County Police Department saw him acting suspiciously near the outer perimeter and took a photograph.
JUST IN: Thomas Crooks "locked eyes" with counter sn*pers before the Trump rally from inside the secure rally area.
According to CNN, Crooks and sn*pers were looking at each other: Crooks through his rangefinder and the sn*per through his scope.
Earlier that week, Crooks went… pic.twitter.com/JbPPFostx1
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 16, 2024
