‘He stopped Crooks and importantly, I believe the shot damaged the buffer tube on Crooks’ AR,’ Rep. Clay Higgins said.
The first shot to strike the man who fired at former President Donald Trump was from a local law enforcement officer, according to a preliminary report from an investigation by a U.S. congressman.
Thomas Crooks fired eight shots from the rooftop of a building near where Trump was speaking in Butler County, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) found that the next shot came from a Butler County Emergency Services Unit SWAT operator, who was about 100 yards away from the building on which Crooks was positioned.
When the SWAT officer saw Crooks as a moving target on the rooftop, he quickly left his post and sprinted toward the man, “running to a clear shot position directly into the line of fire while Crooks was firing,” Higgins said.
“He stopped Crooks and importantly, I believe the shot damaged the buffer tube on Crooks’ AR,” Higgins added later, citing eyewitness testimony.
If the shot damaged the buffer tube on the rifle Crooks was using, it would have left Crooks unable to fire more shots.
Crooks went down from his firing position but popped back up several seconds later, the SWAT officer said.
That’s when a shot from a U.S. Secret Service counter-sniper struck Crooks, killing him, according to Higgins.
The Secret Service has said one of its counter-snipers took out Crooks.
Higgins, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives task force, traveled to Butler County to recreate how Crooks climbed onto the roof and assess what happened.
He said he was assisted in the investigation by local officials, including the Butler County Emergency Services Unit tactical team commander and a top official with the Butler County District Attorney’s office.
Higgins said that among the theories he probed was whether there was another shooter on top of a water tower overlooking the fairgrounds.
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