The new bodycamera footage was released by the Butler County Police Department shows the officer who confronted the shooter.
Bodycam footage from a local Pennsylvania officer who tried to get on the roof where a man shot at former President Donald Trump last month was released on Thursday.
The footage shows the moment an officer with the Butler Township Police Department tried to get on the roof of a building where suspected gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks was perched. Another officer helped lift the responding officer to the roof after rally attendees alerted police that there was an individual on the roof near the rally where Trump was set to speak.
In the clip, an officer is seen moving toward a building before another officer tries to hoist him onto the roof. The officer is then seen trying to climb onto the building before he drops down.
Only officers’ hands are seen as he tries to get onto the roof in the video, which does not show Crooks.
Butler Township Police Department Lt. Matthew Pearson last month told a local Pennsylvania news outlet that the officer was not able to draw his firearm because he was holding onto the building. And Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe told the New York Post last month that the officers who interrupted Crooks may have distracted the shooter before he shot at the former president, hitting him in the ear.
“If I’m interrupted, and I move my gun, you are going to have to reassess that whole situation at this point, so yes, you can make a case that those two officers saved the president’s life,” Slupe told the paper.
He then asked, “Can you imagine 10 seconds before that? That the president was looking straight ahead and where that bullet could have potentially landed.”
More than three weeks after the assassination attempt, federal officials have not disclosed Crooks’s motive. So far, few details have emerged about the suspect, and his family has not issued a public statement responding to the incident.
The Epoch Times has contacted the Butler Township Police Department for comment.
