The FBI identified the gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on Saturday as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20.
Crooks lived in Bethel Park, Pa., about an hour’s drive south of the Pittsburgh suburb, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Little is known of Crooks at this time and authorities haven’t yet declared the motive.
The gunman had no prior criminal history, The New York Times reported, citing Pennsylvania public court records.
While a registered Republican, federal campaign-finance records show he donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a liberal get-out-the-vote group, through ActBlue, a Democratic donation platform, in January 2021, the Times said.
The Intercept put the date of the donation as Jan. 20, 2021, the day of U.S. President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Crooks appears to have graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022 and received a $500 “star award” from the National Math and Science Initiative that year, reported the Times, citing The Tribune-Review in western Pennsylvania.
A video of Crooks from the 2022 graduation ceremony shows him crossing the stage wearing glasses and a black graduation gown to pose with a school official and accept his diploma.
Initially, investigators had a hard time identifying Crooks, who carried no ID. They used DNA, photographs and other information to identify him.
Crooks fired multiple shots from an elevated position at a distance of about 400-500 feet from Trump using an AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle.
A bullet grazed Trump’s ear. “Shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of my right ear,” Trump posted to Truth Social, his social media platform.
One bystander was killed and two critically injured. No information was released about the victims other than that all were adult men.
A Secret Service sniper killed Crooks. “Secret Service blew his head off,” a witness said.
Republican lawmakers said they would open investigations into how someone could climb onto a roof close to where Trump was speaking and get off several shots before being detected.
It later emerged that Crooks had been rejected from his high school rifle club because he was a poor shot.
Team member Jonathan Myers told ABC News that after Crooks tried out, “He was asked not to come back because how bad of a shot he was, it was considered like, dangerous.”
Fellow classmate Jameson Murphy added, “He tried out … and was such a comically bad shot he was unable to make the team and left after the first day.”
Murphy told the New York Post that Crooks once missed a target by almost 20 feet.
Crooks was a member of the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club in Pennsylvania, which has a range of 200 meters, longer than the distance from which he fired at Trump.