Thomas Matthew Crooks used same shooting range as DHS prior to Trump assassination attempt

Crooks, 20, visited the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club in Pennsylvania on May 22 around 3:10 p.m. and practiced shooting by himself, a club logbook released to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) indicates, The New York Post reports.

On the following day, DHS ran a “police training” exercise at the site for three people. Clairton offers a 200-yard-long range that is approximately the 150 yards that Crooks trained on prior to the assassination attempt on Trump. Although one of his shots reached its objective, the wound was not fatal. Crooks instead killed innocent bystander Corey Comperatore and critically injured two others.

It is not clear if DHS used the Clairton range on a regular basis or if this instance on May 23 was out of the ordinary. Crooks was a regular at the range, practicing his shooting there on dozens of occasions since becoming a member of the club in August 2023.

Crooks went to the range on 43 occasions and used the time overwhelmingly to hone his shooting skills. Grassley’s office noted that his dedication indicated “intense preparation” for his planned assassination.

“He focused almost exclusively on the rifle range throughout 2024,” the senator’s office noted in a statement given to the Post. Grassley obtained the logbook from the range after a Congressional request for information.

The range is a 30-minute drive from where Crooks lived in Bethel Park and about an hour away from the Butler fairgrounds where Trump held his rally. Records from his visits were made available to Grassley’s office after a congressional request. Clairton Sportsmen’s Club has not commented on any connection between Crooks and the DHS.

Video footage of the circumstances surrounding the assassination continues to emerge in the weeks following the attempted assassination, much of it raising more questions than it answers. One video showed that police surrounded the building that Crooks was on top of, but Trump was not alerted to his presence or told not to begin speaking. The counter-snipers knew about Crooks’ presence at the site 90 minutes before he began shooting.