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Media sources are identifying the deceased gunman as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. Seems to not have had an internet presence. Strange. +1 for nominative determinism though.
Seems that Crooks may have been prematurely fingered.
There’s some DR Twitter speculation that the real culprit is Pittsburgh-based antifa street brawler Maxwell Yearick, who certainly does uncannily resemble the supposed photos of the shooter, but I’m gonna wait and see how things shake out before endorsing any of this speculation.
That's a troll , @jewgazing on twitter There's also a photo going around of a guy in a gun youtuber t-shirt, supposedly of the shooter.
people misidentify Crooks as the Yearick antifa guy. But the antifa guy is way too old.
in a "simulation is totally fucking with us" cleanest shots of Crooks are from a Blackrock advert shot at his school.
Crooks has an ear that perfectly matches the shape of the dead guy's ear, and is young enough to match the corpse photo.
Couple odd details: crooks wears glasses, but shooter has no glasses.
They were on the roof of a maybe 1.5 story tall shed, the shooter was on what looks like a garage or story unit.
Cca 5 seconds from the first shot by the assassin, to the final muted shot. Hard to say whether 4) is true because I feel had they had him in his sights, he'd have been killed 1-2 seconds after firing or presumably, before even firing.
I wonder if they were just unsure. I don’t envy them, it would be a big scandal if they executed some random guy watching from a nearby roof.
Or a police officer
There's no way all the sniper teams wouldn't be on the same radio channel imo.
Also, the guy wasn't even dressed like a cop and tbh, anyone aiming a gun at a guy protected by counter-snipers is fair game and asking for a bullet. You just don't do this.
Coupled with the rooftop being unsecured and the counter-snipers apparently watching the sniper beforehand, it does smell like a setup. We'll hear about it, if the SS detail truly got 'do not shoot' orders from their bosses, that's gonna leak.
look at the picture. There wasn't even any other place than the assassin's rooftop where they could be looking. Since WW2, snipers hiding in trees are a lost art. Wehrmacht in France was pretty fond of that but I haven't heard of that since.
That's not what I'm saying. The secret service was there in limited capacity and relied on local law enforcement for much of the security (but not sniper teams), miscommunication regularly happens, especially when different departments are trying to cooperate.
We're talking about a split second decision here not watching the guy for a couple of minutes and deciding not to shoot until he shoots.
They can't possibly be as amateurish as not be clear on just precisely how many riflemen are doing security. Having to waste time in a crisis figuring out who's who -that'd be totally nonsensical in a crisis.
From what I've seen in a twitter thread by a guy who says he was SS, the counter-snipers are always just the secret service, local LE does perimeter security and is responsible for, among other things, people staying off rooftops with a view of the stage etc.
Reread what I wrote.
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Did the gun have a scope? If his prescription is mild he wouldn't need the glasses with a scope.
Or he could have been wearing contacts.
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Haven't seen a good picture of the gun yet.
About the only thing that's clear that it was a semi-auto with a low recoil, so probably a .223, and he wasn't completely bad at shooting.
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That video isn't of Matthew crooks though, but a troll?
Entirely plausible! All I’m saying is that until I see some real reporting corroborated by multiple sources, I’m going to avoid accepting any claims at face value.
EDIT: I’m now seeing multiple outlets reporting that the FBI themselves have named Crooks, so I now assume that identification is correct.
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Not sure about the name (nypost seems to be the terminal source for it, and they previously, for example, confidently reported he was Chinese), but a photo that's being widely circulated along with it is apparently just some random guy on twitter who was just fucking around.
Not 100% sure about this photo either for that matter, which at the moment is the only known(/suspected?) photo of the shooter alive. I saw it emerge on 4chan with no attribution or explanation then 10 minutes later just be everywhere without question. It certainly seems consistent with the ~2 other currently-known photos of the assassin dead, but when and where is it supposed to be from? Like was it taken by someone at the rally today before he was on the roof?
Yet: it was not nearly as crazy an information environment today as I would have expected. After 8 years of reality-fracturing hysteria, someone finally actually tried to assassinate Donald Trump. By shooting at his head, with a rifle, in public. And they hit him! They shot off the top of his fucking ear! We came 2 centimeters from Donald Trump's head exploding on national TV today. And the worst fracture of consensus material reality we've got so far is some relatively mild mistaken identity with no political valence?
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Is that a demo ranch t-shirt? https://www.bunkerbranding.com/collections/demolition-ranch-shirts/products/demolitia-t-shirt?variant=6807591190573
Looks like the flag matches up and I see a bit of an EM on the front. That would quickly pivot things to gun control.
Yup, I see it too.
For the uninitiated, "Demo Ranch" is a gun-tuber youtube channel that... well, probably the best description would be low-budget gun-centric DIY Mythbusters. I'd classify them as moderate Red Tribe, certainly on the family-friendly end of the spectrum. No idea what their community looks like, no idea if it's actually their shirt, and no idea why an attempted assassin aiming at Trump would be wearing it.
There is another angle from before the shooting circulating which definitely confirms it https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1812333459127578870 The blue shirt photo is fake, some 4chan troll, but that grey shirt matches with the photos of the deceased shooter and shows the logo clearly.
Yeah demo really keeps his channel clean of politics given it's focus and the audience. Though he collabs with Brandon Herrera who recently ran for congress and lost his primary and is very pro Trump / populist right.
The nypost now reports that he was a registered republican as well, and it wasn't a super recent registration either, in 2021, the same month he turned 18.
Either this is a very long running attempt at creating a republican persona to falseflag with or he was republican and still shot trump for some reason.
Or maybe it's two different people or something.
The details are all over the place. He was registered as a republican since 2021, had donated 15$ to the Biden campaign in 2021, was wearing a t-shirt of one of the biggest gun youtube channels, was using an AR with basic iron sights...
Combine that with all the scrutiny the secret service is getting for the delayed reaction and lax security and if there is no manifesto there will be as many conspiracies about this as JFK.
Or, alternatively, isn't this classic "regular-ish person with heterodox-ish views does something radical"? I don't see why seeing someone incompetent do something leads to the conclusion that really there must have been someone competent behind the scenes. Seeing how many incompetent people in my daily life exist...
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Wasn't the donation in January 2021?
oops typo, fixed.
Hilariously 4chan also found out he starred in a commercial for a big globalist / left wing investment company https://youtube.com/watch?v=hjmLqoGRqNo
invest in tin foil
Hilarious yes but serious no. The way those work is a camera crew shows up one random schoolday and is like "hey do you mind if you're in the shot while we film your teacher" and you're like "hell yeah" or "whatever don't care, it's fine" and you never hear about it again.
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Who are you referring to? The guy who "stars" in that video is an older man with a goatee and is definitely not our shooter.
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I looked it up, and Pennsylvania has a closed primary. If he were an anti-Trump centrist, or even a Democrat, it would be sensible for him to have registered as a Republican in order to tactically vote against Trumpy candidates in the primaries. It's not like you have to vote along with your party registration in the general.
But it also seems most likely to me this was indeed a Republican. The motivation isn't particularly clear at this stage, maybe there'll be a manifesto. But I doubt we'll be allowed to read it.
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I can't imagine one getting ready to assassinate a former President and not considering the symbolism of one's attire. I'm curious to know whether this shirt was bought especially for this ocassion or whether it was something pulled out of the back the closet because it just happened to be an inconspicuous gray.
The optics of attire are a slippery slope for mainstream media to assign providence. If the attire of a criminal is proof of intent then every keffiyeh, sagger pant or blm hoodie is grounds for discrimination.
What I'm trying to say is: fucking do it. Open discrimination against redcaps means open discrimination against the DSA and I know who will lose any confrontation.
I admire your confidence that the DSA won't just be declared a protected class.
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I feel really bad for the other guy that Twitter thought for sure was the shooter.
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