Firefighter, gunman each killed by single bullet at Trump's Butler rally, autopsies say
Published in News & Features
PITTSBURGH — A spectator killed at a rally for former President Donald Trump last month was shot once in the head, according to the Butler County coroner's office.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old who opened fire on Trump and the crowd gathered at the Butler Farm Show grounds July 13, was also killed by a single gunshot wound to the head, according to the office.
Both deaths are classified as homicides. The term homicide, as it relates to manner of death, means the killing was intentionally carried out by another.
Federal authorities have said Crooks was shot by a Secret Service counter-sniper moments after he began shooting from the roof of a short building just outside the farm grounds. Investigators have said they found eight casings from Crooks' AR-style rifle on the roof near his body.
It's unclear how many law enforcement officers opened fire and how many shots they fired.
Crooks wounded the former president and two spectators and killed 50-year-old Corey Comperatore.
The shooting at the Butler County rally forced the resignation of Secret Service head Kimberly Cheatle, who said herself that the shooting was the agency's worst failure in decades. Congress, the Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI are conducting separate investigations into the attempted assassination.
Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. pledged last week to hold personnel accountable for any policy violations on July 13. He also promised to address gaps in security and regain Americans' trust.
"I promise accountability," he said, but cautioned that he "will not rush to judgment nor ignore due process."
"We should have had better protection for the protectee, better coverage on the roofline," he said. "We should have at least had some other set of eyes from the Secret Service point of view covering that. That building was very close to the outer perimeter. We should have had more of a presence ... The bottom line is this was a Secret Service failure."
Local law enforcement leaders have vehemently defended the actions taken by Butler and Beaver County officers and Pennsylvania State Police troopers on the day of the rally. They also say they had little-to-no direct contact with the Secret Service, and that they believed messages and photos they were sending of Crooks after he was deemed suspicious would reach the right teams.
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(c)2024 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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