The first shot that struck Thomas Crooks, the man who fired eight rounds at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, wounding Trump and killing an attendee, came from a local SWAT officer stationed about 100 yards away from the rooftop where Crooks was positioned, according to a preliminary investigative report by Rep. Clay Higgins.
The SWAT officer noticed Crooks moving on the rooftop and quickly left his post, sprinting toward a vantage point where he could take a clear shot, “running directly into the line of fire while Crooks was actively shooting,” Higgins reported.
“The officer’s shot appears to have hit Crooks and may have damaged the buffer tube on Crooks’ AR-15,” Higgins added, citing eyewitness accounts. This shot may have disabled Crooks’ rifle.
The fatal shot that killed Crooks was fired by a U.S. Secret Service counter-sniper, according to Higgins.
Higgins, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives task force investigating the incident, traveled to Butler County to reconstruct how Crooks accessed the rooftop and to assess the events that unfolded. He was assisted by local officials, including the commander of the Butler County Emergency Services Unit tactical team and a senior official from