The FBI has released official photos of 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, who fired shots at a Donald Trump rally, striking the ex-president in the ear at a rally in Butler yesterday.
Crooks is on record as a registered Republican who made a one-time donation to the Biden campaign. Yet, authorities have not disclosed any possible motives.
The FBI has stepped in and initiated an investigation, which includes sending dogs to the suspect's residence to check for potential 'booby traps.' The gunman was fatally shot at the scene.
Bethel Park is a village in Pennsylvania around 40 miles south of where the Butler rally was being held.
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Eyewitnesses report seeing a man with a rifle aimed at the former president just before the gunfire erupted.
The suspected shooter, who was taken down at the location, was reportedly aiming a rifle at the Presidential candidate for "two to three minutes" before discharging the weapon.
The incident occurred while the former President was addressing a crowd at a rally in Pennsylvania when a bullet tore through his right ear. About six minutes into his speech in Butler, Mr. Trump suddenly ceased talking, clutched the side of his face, and ducked for cover.
The father of the young man killed following the botched assassination attempt on Donald Trump broke his silence early Sunday morning.. Crooks' father, Matthew Crooks, 53, told CNN that before speaking about his son, he was trying to figure out what happened and would wait until he spoke to law enforcement.
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The son is thought to have used an AR-style rifle to shoot Trump, which officers later recovered after he was shot dead.
Authorities are treating the shooting at Trump's Pennsylvania rally as an attempted murder of the former head of state and the presumed Republican frontrunner, according to law enforcement officials.
David McCormick, the Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate who was seated in the front row, conveyed to Politico that it looked like someone behind him took a bullet.
"All the sudden shots started to crack, someone behind me appears to have been shot," McCormick stated. "There's lots of blood, and then the Secret Service were all over President Trump."
The FBI has announced that it will spearhead the investigation into the attempted assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump to ensure the shooter was in fact a lone wolf. The bureau will conduct this operation in collaboration with the Secret Service and local and state law enforcement.
The Attorney General, Merrick Garland, declared that this investigation would also involve significant contributions from other divisions, including the ATF, the US attorney's office in the Western District of Pennsylvania, and the Justice Department's national security division.
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