Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old responsible for the assassination attempt on Donald Trump that resulted in another individual’s death, reportedly threatened to “shoot up” his high school five years prior to the attack.
Vincent Taormina, 20, who attended Bethel Park High School at the same time as Crooks, told the Daily Mail that the threat was enough to keep some students home for the following day, but dismissed by school officials.
“We had like this anonymous place you could post things or tell on someone on our computers at school and he posted something like ‘Don’t come to school tomorrow,’ and something else that made it sound like he’d put bombs in the cafeteria bathrooms,” Taormina said. “Half of us just didn’t come to school the next day – I didn’t. But it wasn’t taken seriously.
“We all texted one another and it came out pretty quickly that it was Thomas and his friend group who’d made the threats to shoot [the school] up.”
Crooks reportedly researched Trump’s movements, as well as President Joe Biden and other top officials prior to the attack, FBI investigators said during private briefings to lawmakers, according to the New York Times. Crooks searched for the dates of Trump’s appearances and the Democratic National Convention, as well as ways to treat his own “major depressive disorder,” investigators confirmed.
The 20-year-old also had photos of both Trump and Biden saved on his cellphone, law enforcement sources had previously confirmed to the New York Post. Crooks was also reported to have searched for FBI Director Christopher Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland and an unspecified member of the British royal family, according to the New York Times.
The shooter also reportedly shared a chilling post online hinting at the attack.
“July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds,” Crooks wrote on Steam, a social media platform for gamers, according to FOX News, reporting that the post was revealed to U.S. senators during a briefing conducted by top law enforcement officials on Wednesday (July 17).
Newly released video footage shared by WTAE shows Crooks, whose face isn’t clearly visible, walking back and forth near a building just outside the secured perimeter of the outdoor event at around 5:06 p.m. local time. A photo obtained by WXPI showed Crooks crawling on the ground and appearing to scope out a spot near the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally at around 5:45 p.m. local time.
The photo was reportedly taken by a law enforcement officer who had previously seen Crooks on the ground and deemed him to be suspicious, multiple sources confirmed to the news station. Crooks, who was found with a detonator wired to an improvised explosive device hidden in the trunk of his car parked nearby, opened fire about 26 minutes after the photo was taken, at which point he was immediately taken out by Secret Service agents.
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