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Texts Show Law Enforcement Were Aware Of Trump Shooter Earlier Than Previously Known

Crime and Justice News

Text messages between local law enforcement officials prior to the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump reveal that the gunman, later identified as Thomas Crooks, aroused police suspicion more than 90 minutes before the shooting, rather than about 60 minutes, as has been previously discussed in congressional hearings. The messages also add to the evidence that the would-be assassin was often one step ahead of security forces, and in particular the Secret Service, the New York Time reports. Crooks scoped out the rally site a day before the Secret Service did. He used a drone to survey the site while the Secret Service did not seek permission to use one for the rally. He researched how far Lee Harvey Oswald was from John F. Kennedy when he fatally shot the president in 1963 — the answer is about 265 feet — and managed to climb onto a roof that was about 400 feet from Mr. Trump at its closest point. The Secret Service left that roof unmanned.


And while counter snipers were assigned to surveil the rally, Crooks was also in a position to watch them. A local countersniper alerted his colleagues that Crooks was outside a warehouse that overlooked the campaign rally site over an hour and a half before he fired a shot, at 4:26 pm. Unlike the other visitors, he was not trying to enter the rally site through the security checkpoints, a fact that attracted the attention of the local counter snipers inside the warehouse. One of them took photos of him at 5:14 p.m. Col. Christopher Paris, the Pennsylvania State Police commissioner, testified in a congressional hearing on Tuesday that officers were busy that day, responding to more than 100 heat-related emergencies. There were also other suspicious people whom security officials were trying to assess at the rally, which is not unusual for such events, Colonel Paris said. But then, Mr. Crooks did something that alarmed the police. They saw him using the range finder.

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