Trump Shooter Identified

The FBI early Sunday identified the shooter at former President Trump's rally as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Secret Service agents fatally shot Crooks, reports the AP, who attacked from an elevated position outside the rally venue at a farm show in Butler, Pennsylvania, the agency said. Law enforcement recovered an AR-style rifle at the scene. One attendee was killed and two spectators were critically injured, authorities said. All were identified as men. The attack was the most serious attempt to assassinate a president or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. It could alter the tenor and security posture at the Republican National Convention, which will begin Monday in Milwaukee. Organizers said the convention would proceed as planned.

• AP analysis of videos and photos from the scene, as well as satellite imagery, shows the shooter was able to get astonishingly close to the stage where the former president was speaking. A video posted to social media and geolocated by the AP 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. The roof where the person lay was less than 160 yards from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target.
• Officials said members of the Secret Service counterassault team killed the shooter. 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.

• Many Republicans quickly blamed the violence on President 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."
• 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.

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• Trump flew to New Jersey after visiting a local Pennsylvania hospital, landing shortly after midnight at Newark Liberty International Airport. Video showed the former president deplaning his private jet flanked by Secret Service agents and heavily armed members of the agency's counter assault team, an unusually visible show of force by his protective detail.
• Two firefighters from nearby Steubenville, Ohio, who were at the rally told the AP that they helped people who appeared injured and heard bullets hitting broadcast speakers. "The bullets rattled around the grandstand, one hit the speaker tower and then chaos broke. We hit the ground and then the police converged into the grandstands," Chris Takach said. "The first thing I heard is a couple of cracks," Dave Sullivan said. Sullivan said he saw one of the speakers get hit and bullets rattling and "we hit the deck."

(More Trump rally shooting stories.)