Would-be Trump assassin's rampage ended when SWAT hit his rifle with a bullet, report says

Would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks' wild rifle assault on former President Donald J. Trump and a Pennsylvania rally crowd July 13 was ended by a “total badass” SWAT operator who hit Crooks' rifle with a bullet from ground level 100 yards away, U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) said.

Crooks, 20, was “fragged” in the face when a Butler County Emergency Services Unit SWAT operator fired at him from ground level and blew apart his rifle's stock, Higgins said Aug. 15.

In a report to the bipartisan House task force investigating the attempted assassination of former President Trump, Higgins credited the SWAT operator with ending Crooks' attack after eight shots — about 10 seconds before a police counter-sniper shot and killed Crooks. A source earlier told Blaze News the counter-sniper shot was fired from 448 yards southwest of Crooks' position.

“Shot 9 hit Crooks’ rifle stock and fragged his face/neck/right shoulder area from the stock breaking up,” Higgins wrote. “The SWAT operator who took this shot was a total badass. When he had sighted the shooter Crooks as a mostly obscured-by-foliage moving target on the [American Glass Research] rooftop, he immediately left his assigned post and ran towards the threat, running to a clear-shot position directly into the line of fire while Crooks was firing 8 rounds.”

Higgins said his preliminary report was based on about 20 hours of investigative work at the scene in Butler County Aug. 4-6.

“As always, my investigation was focused on hard evidence and facts, specific observations guided by instinct and experience,” he wrote. “My overall mission was to personally observe and investigate the available crime scene site, along with consideration of both anticipated and unanticipated interactions with witnesses, the crime scene landscape, hard evidence, corroborative evidence, and circumstantial evidence.”

Even after being identified by local police 90 minutes before the shooting as a suspicious person, Crooks was able to slip onto the roof of the sprawling AGR complex between 6:06 and 6:08 p.m. and run at least two-thirds the length of the roof to a concealed shooting perch on Building 6, bodycam footage showed.

A Pennsylvania State Police trooper broadcast a warning at 6:08 p.m. that someone was on the roof, but the Secret Service apparently did not hear it. The Secret Service had no personnel in the local police command center and failed to use the special radios provided by police for communicating with the local command center, officials have said.

Crooks shot Trump in the right ear at 6:11:32 p.m. during an initial burst of three rifle shots, followed by a rapid discharge of five more bullets. Killed in the gunfire was volunteer firefighter Corey Comperatore, 50, of Sarver, Pa. The seriously wounded included David Dutch, 57, of New Kensington, Pa., and James Copenhaver, 74, of Moon Township, Pa.

In a briefing last week with U.S. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), local police officials said the U.S. Secret Service has not even acknowledged the heroic action taken by the Butler County SWAT officer in stopping the attack. “That's not being widely reported,” Johnson said Aug. 11.

'This pattern of investigative scorched earth by the FBI is quite troubling.'

Higgins said it is possible that the bullet from the SWAT operator disabled Crooks’ weapon and prevented him from firing a ninth or subsequent time.

“On his own, this ESU SWAT operator took a very hard shot, one shot,” Higgins said. “He stopped Crooks, and importantly, I believe he damaged the buffer tube on Crooks’ AR. … This means that if his AR buffer tube was damaged, Crooks’ rifle would not fire after his eighth shot.”

The buffer tube on an AR-15-style rifle houses a system to control recoil when the weapon is fired.

When the SWAT bullet hit his AR-15, Crooks initially went down from his prone shooting stance, the report said, perhaps stunned by the debris striking his face and neck. After a few seconds, the Butler SWAT operator reported, Crooks “popped back up.”

Video shot from the west side of Building 6 by eyewitness Jon Malis shows Crooks almost sitting up after his rifle was hit. “Then when I looked back later with my video zoomed in,” Malis said. “Sure enough, you could see him sit up and sling his weapon around and aim it right towards us right before the Secret Service shot him.”

Higgins served in a variety of law enforcement roles in Louisiana before first taking office in the House in 2017. Most recently he served as deputy marshal for the city of Lafayette and previously held law enforcement positions at city, town, and parish departments.

FBI releases shooter's body

Higgins said he had planned to examine Crooks’ body on an investigative trip to Butler Aug. 5 but discovered the FBI had released it to the family for cremation on July 23. “Nobody knew this until Monday, August 5,” Higgins said.

“The problem with me not being able to examine the actual body is that I won’t know 100% if the coroner’s report and the autopsy report are accurate. We will actually never know,” Higgins wrote. “Yes, we’ll get the reports and pictures, etc., but I will not ever be able to say with certainty that those reports and pictures are accurate according to my own examination of the body.”

He said the FBI released the crime scene after just three days, harming the efforts of other investigations examining the shooting.

'Cops don't do that, ever.'

“I interviewed several first responders who expressed everything from surprise to dismay to suspicion regarding the fact that the FBI released the crime scene so early after J13,” he said. “It should be noted that the FBI was fully aware of the fact that Congress would be investigating J13. The FBI does not exist in a vacuum. They had to know that releasing the J13 crime scene would injure the immediate observations of any following investigation.”

The FBI also scrubbed the scene before releasing it.

A Beaver County Emergency Services SWAT operator and a medic enter the building from which Thomas Crooks shot former President Donald J. Trump at a rally July 13 in Butler, Pa.Butler Township Police Department via Judicial Watch

“The FBI cleaned up biological evidence from the crime scene, which is unheard of,” he said. “Cops don’t do that, ever.”

Higgins described the actions of the FBI as “obstruction” of congressional and other investigations that were started since the FBI opened its criminal probe of the shooting. The FBI was surely aware of the U.S. House task force appointed by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), he said.

“Why, then, by what measure would the FBI release his body to the family for cremation? This pattern of investigative scorched earth by the FBI is quite troubling,” Higgins said.

In a statement to Blaze News, the FBI fired back.

“Any suggestion the FBI is interfering with congressional efforts to look into the attempted assassination which took place in Butler, Pennsylvania, is inaccurate and unfounded," the FBI National Press Office wrote. “The FBI has been working closely with our law enforcement partners to conduct a thorough investigation into the shooting, and we have followed normal procedures in the handling of the crime scene and evidence.

“The FBI continues its painstaking work on the investigation to develop as complete a picture as possible of what led to the shooting, and we remain committed to maximum transparency as we continue to brief Congress and publish information for the public regarding the ongoing investigation,” the FBI said.

The FBI statement also called out several of Higgins' specific assertions:

• “The crime scene was released to the property owners in phases as we completed our work at the AGR building, its surroundings, and at the Butler Farm Show grounds. Nothing was rushed and everything was documented as part of the investigation.”
• “The FBI arranged for the cleaning of the location where the perpetrator died which is in keeping with normal procedures.”
• “The shooter's body was released to his family after coordination with the coroner's office and our state and local law enforcement partners. This is also in keeping with normal procedures.”

The Higgins report confirmed information published by Blaze News Aug. 12 that indicated Crooks took a path along the roof to his shooting perch that minimized his exposure to the counter-sniper teams. The view of the Secret Service counter-snipers was badly obscured by two large trees just southeast of the building from which Crooks fired. Crooks likely used his drone just before 4 p.m. to confirm the route he would take on the roof, a Blaze source said.

“Crooks’ firing position was also several feet back from the actual peak of the AGR rooftop,” Higgins said. “By choosing this position, Crooks effectively minimized the sky-lined profile of his head and upper body.”

No second shooter

The report discounted widely circulated internet theories that a second gunman was located atop the blue water tower at the edge of the AGR property. Higgins said the tower was checked and cleared using a drone in the morning. The retractable ladder to access the tower was never lowered that day, and local police squads sat underneath the tower much of the day, he said.

To reach the top of the tower, someone would have had to scale the first 25 feet with no ladder, then climb 75 feet to the catwalk, then make it up the “intimidating and precarious” dome vent access ladder.

“I do not believe it was possible for a '2nd shooter' sniper to be on top of that water tower on J13, nor have I seen any evidence that supports the theory of a 2nd shooter. I’m not saying conclusively that there was no other shooter somewhere or that no other conspirators were involved in J13, but I’m saying that based on my investigation thus far, there were 10 shots fired on J13, and all shots are accounted for, and all shots align with their source.”

Higgins also quashed the idea that a muzzle flash was seen in a first-floor window of the AGR building at the time of the shooting. He said he examined the window and determined it does not open.

Higgins gave high marks to the tactical teams and other local police officers who staffed the event and responded to the shooting. “My assessment of the local law enforcement's overall performance on J13 is that the ESU was very professionally deployed and commanded,” he said.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated with a statement from the FBI provided to Blaze News.

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