Trump rally shooter was registered Republican; Would have voted for first time in November
Washington (PTI): Thomas Matthew Crooks, the gunman who authorities say attempted to assassinate former president Donald Trump was a 20-year-old registered Republican who would have voted for the first time in the presidential election in November.
He lived in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bethel Park, about 56 km south of the Trump rally site where law enforcement officials said he fired at Trump, the presumptive presidential candidate of the Republican Party.
Crooks was shot dead by the Secret Service personnel on Saturday, soon after he fired a volley of shots at Trump from an “elevated position outside of the rally venue.”
He had previously made a small contribution to a Democratic-aligned group, CNN reported, quoting public records.
He graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022, according to a local media report and a video of the school’s commencement.
Crooks was registered to vote as a Republican, according to a listing in Pennsylvania’s voter database that matched his name, age, and a Bethel Park address that law enforcement searched.
This year’s presidential election would have been the first he was old enough to vote in, CNN said. A US citizen who turned 18 years old on or before Election Day (November 5, 2024) is eligible to vote.
Federal Election Commission records show that a donor listed as Thomas Crooks with the same address gave USD 15 to a Democratic-aligned political action committee called the Progressive Turnout Project in January 2021.
When reached by CNN after the attack on Trump, Crooks’ father, Matthew Crooks, said he was trying to figure out “what the hell is going on” but would “wait until I talk to law enforcement” before speaking about his son.
Crooks did not have any identification on his body, so agents had to “run his DNA and get biometric confirmation,” Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, said at a press conference Saturday night before Crooks was named.
One attendee at the rally was killed and two others were critically injured, authorities said.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
11 more bodies retrieved from Arunachal accident site
Itanagar (PTI): Eleven more bodies were retrieved on Saturday from the deep gorge in Arunachal Pradesh's Anjaw district, where a mini-truck on which 22 labourers from Assam were travelling fell, an official said.
With this, 17 bodies have been recovered from the accident site, Anjaw's deputy commissioner Milo Kojin said.
He said three more bodies will be brought out on Sunday.
The operation, being conducted by a joint team of the NDRF and Army, resumed at 6 am.
ALSO READ: Traffic fraud: Fake 'no-entry' sticker racket busted in Delhi, mastermind among 3 held
"The retrieval process was extremely difficult because of the treacherous terrain, and the gorge is very deep," Kojin said.
The operation was suspended around 4 pm due to low visibility and will be resumed on Sunday morning, he said.
"One person is still missing, and a search operation will be carried out tomorrow," he added.
The accident happened on the evening of December 8, around 40 km from Hayuliang towards Chaglagam in the district. On the evening of December 10, one survivor managed to climb out of the gorge and reach a nearby Border Roads Task Force (BRTF) labour camp, following which the authorities were alerted.
Six bodies were recovered from the gorge on Friday and handed over to their families on Saturday.
