Thomas Matthew Crooks posted a chilling online message foreshadowing his plans before attacking former President Donald Trump at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“I will have my premiere on July 13th, see how it goes,” the 20-year-old killer allegedly wrote on Steam, a popular online platform for gamers, Fox News reported.
Crooks’ phone reportedly contained photos of both Donald Trump and President Biden, and he also searched for the dates of the Democratic National Convention and Trump’s Pennsylvania rally, The NYPost reports.
Investigators are analyzing the shooter’s phone and computer to determine the motive behind the assassination attempt. Although they have examined the gunman’s search history, they have not yet been able to determine his political affiliation, although he is registered as a Republican.
The shooter reportedly had two mobile phones, one found near his body and the other at his home, which had only 27 contacts.
According to reports from law enforcement sources, snipers spotted Crooks on a rooftop with a rifle at 5:52 p.m., but he did not begin firing until 6:12 p.m. This means there was a 20-minute delay between when Crooks was first spotted and when the firing began.
After Crooks shot Donald Trump, the Secret Service shot him within 26 seconds. The former president escaped with only a minor injury to his ear.
The 50-year-old father of two girls was killed and two others were injured by bullets fired from an AR-style rifle.
Crooks was identified as a suspect just an hour before the shooting, sources told NYPost. He drove to Trump’s rally on Saturday with several suspicious items in his car — a remote control transmitter, a detonator and an improvised metal explosive device connected to a receiver in his trunk — suggesting he may have planned to cause a distraction or distraction.
In the days before the attack, Crooks visited a shooting range, and also stopped at a Home Depot and a gun store, where he purchased 50 rounds of ammunition and a 5-foot-high ladder.
