Local officer—not Secret Service—shot Trump's would-be assassin first at Butler rally: report

Would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks was shot first by a local police officer before a Secret Service sniper was able to kill the shooter in Butler, Pennsylvania, according to a new report from Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA), who is also a veteran and former law enforcement officer.

According to a preliminary report from Higgins, after Crooks fired his eight shots, a shot was fired, not from the USSS, but from a local SWAT officer who struck "Crooks’ rifle stock and fragged his face/neck/right shoulder area from the stock breaking up."



"The SWAT operator who took this shot was a total badass; when he had sighted the shooter Crooks as a mostly obscured by foliage moving target on the AGR rooftop, he immediately left his assigned post and ran towards the threat, running to a clear shot position directly into the line of fire while Crooks was firing 8 rounds," the report stated.

"On his own, this ESU SWAT operator took a very hard shot, one shot. He stopped Crooks and importantly, I believe the shot damaged the buffer tube on Crooks’ AR," Higgins added in the report, saying that he would need to examine the rifle that had been used by Crooks in order to finalize his findings.

Crooks then "went down" from his firing position after the shot was fired. According to the SWAT officer, Crooks recovered from the hit and "popped back up." Subsequently, the USSS took the fatal shot, killing Crooks instantly.

Higgins also pointed out in the report that the "FBI released the crime scene after just 3 days, much to everyone’s surprise." Higgins added that he "interviewed several First Responders who expressed everything from surprise to dismay to suspicion" as a result of the early crime scene release. "The FBI cleaned up biological evidence from the crime scene, which is unheard of. Cops don’t do that, ever," he added.

Higgins further laid into the FBI's apparent rushed investigation of the crime scene, noting that not all of Crooks' shots had been tracked down for evidence. Higgin determined that the Butler County Emergency Services Unit (ESU) "was very professionally deployed and commanded" given the circumstances.

USSS head Kimberly Cheatle, before she resigned from her position, had suggested that the local police were at fault for the assassination attempt.