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Crooks got off three shots, then five shots were heard in rapid succession, then one shot from the Secret Service sniper ended Crooks.
It was a Trump rally, and there were spectators on the grassy field next to the sniper’s perch, not inside the event grounds and thus not searched by security, who could see and film him on the roof. I wouldn’t be surprised if a Trump enthusiast pulled his own pistol and sent five rounds toward Crooks. Though if that had happened, I’d expect someone to have reported it by now.
What gets me is that there were three people, in addition to Trump, who were seriously wounded or killed. First bullet when through Trump's ear and then took out someone to the stage left of him (saw a video of someone collapsing immediately, before the rest of the crowd got spooked.) Two more shots, two more dead/seriously wounded. It's certainly possible, like shooting fish in a barrel. But man, how unfortunate.
From the beginning I was wondering if they were trying to cover up a friendly fire incident, but I don't know.
Trump's entire backdrop was supporters packed in shoulder-to-shoulder, a practice that is pretty normal for political speeches; a literal demonstration of "they stand behind what I'm saying". There was nowhere else for the shots to go but into bystanders, and the shooter's position put those supporters in enfilade. Multiple casualties were practically guaranteed, because missing everyone with a given shot was for all practical purposes impossible.
That's also why I thought it possible that there was friendly fire. Because firing towards the shooter would also mean firing over/through a large crowd.
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Perhaps with the headline “Trump supporter endangers first responders with concealed firearm”?
In all seriousness, I think there are still a lot of reasonable explanations left. We’ll only get more information as we wait.
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My understanding, possibly incorrect, was that there was both a USSS sniper team, and a sniper team from the local police. My guess is that Crooks opened fire, the local sniper team shot back, and then, finally, the USSS sniper fired a single shot to confirm the kill.
This seems to fit the audio recording and the official statements that the Secret Service fired only a single round. If accurate, it's also pretty troubling that the actual USSS snipers played no actual role in stopping the shooter, only "confirming the kill" after the fact. Combined with Trump's claims that no one warned him at any point, this would look very, very bad for the secret service.
The local sniper team was said to be hanging out inside the building right next to the roof Crooks was on -- another one of those oddly insider 4chan videos seems to show them checking out one of the upstairs rooms pre-event, and that they would have been practically on top of him if they'd looked out the window.
So certainly it would have been possible for one of them to take a poke at him with his patrol rifle, but if they had done so there will be 4-5 .223 holes in him (not to mention the roof he was on) in addition to the big one from the SS sniper.
This spacial analysis claims 4 sniper teams - two from the USSS, both with somewhat impaired lines of sight, and one or two police teams, including one they think was in the building but with window views that also didn't cover the roof, and the other which they think was much further away, but they didn't sound very sure about it. The article is nice because they have some of their own drone footage they used and also shows what they believe to be the window vantage you describe.
I found the source for that video; it's apparently Rep. Eli Crane, who also happens to be a retired Navy Seal. (!?) So the video is made post shooting; he actually drove over there to investigate himself:
https://twitter.com/rawsalerts/status/1815467636114768242
There is clearly full view of the roof in question from the windows in question -- the NYT reconstruction seems to be looking out of the one at the very end (not the same as the video), but even if that's where the other team was stationed it would still be a trivial (~100 ft) shot just by leaning out the window. No need for suppressing fire from that location; you could terminate the threat very easily.
Great find!
As you point out, the fundamental question is one of awareness and communication. The key questions going forward almost all have to do with who knew what, and when. As you point out, leaning out the window would let you see him, but would they know to lean? Did some people assume that the entire roof was observed when it clearly was only a portion? The video obviously disproves the "roof was slanted and therefore dangerous" but I don't think almost anyone took that cope seriously in the first place despite who shared it.
Edit: I should add that there's also a second line of inquiry equally worth pursuing, though it's not new -- who approved and set up the plan in the first place? For example, was putting a team in the water tower actually viable/practical?
I would think the gunfire breaking out ~100 ft away would be a big clue?
I mean he was shot dead within a matter of seconds. The potent and important questions all deal with the situation before any shots are fired…
The 'anomaly' (it's not clear that there actually is one) I'm talking about here is the two different-sounding sets of semi-auto fire -- these are like 5-10s apart? Which is more than enough time for somebody to lean out the window and hose down the guy on the roof within spitting distance. If of course that person were actually doing overwatch at the time, which the 'local snipers' were supposed to be doing, from inside the building.
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My assessment from the audio is that someone did take a poke at him with a semi-auto rifle, and presumably there will be brass on the ground and (potentially) bullet holes in him or the building to verify that.
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The link says “the U.S. Secret Service sniper that neutralized the gunman fired one round,” which doesn’t account for the other sniper, or for other potential units. Plus, it could just be incorrect.
I’m seeing conflicting details here, too.
Do you think Crooks’ autopsy will be public information?
No idea. Just after posting the above, though, I see someone else suggested that the rapid overlapping shots suppressed the shooter, which would mean the final shot from the USSS sniper is what killed him. This would make an equal amount of sense given the audio; for that matter, at 130 yards, it might have been one of the numerous ground-level non-snipers armed with LPVO ARs who did the suppressing, which given the apparent angles, would also explain why the shots only suppressed the assassin rather than killing them. this would then be reported as "missing" in the press, but would entirely suffice to explain why Crooks stopped firing (he retreated to cover when return fire invaded his personal space) and for the delay in the USSS final shot (they waited for him to poke his head out again, or else they were setting up what would have otherwise been a very marginal shot.)
I'd bet Crooks' autopsy will be released; if he's only got the one hole, that would be good confirmation of suppression and then a killshot.
Quite possible, especially given he’d just sent a police officer back to inform his buddies.
The report so far claims that only Crooks’ head and scope were visible to the sniper. No idea where they got that, or how to reconcile it with the claims Crooks was using iron sights.
I wonder if law enforcement is normally trained to suppress. It’s essential to squad tactics, but not to defensive gun use, which I’d expect to form the bulk of police courses.
It's a bit of a problem for the hypothesis that the ground-level tac squad guys shot back -- shooting upwards at a silhouette is roughly the worst thing you can do for stray bullets, with the additional issue in this case that the local cops were known to be in that specific area as well!
Not sure what the ROE are like for engaging presidential snipers, but spraying suppressing fire at that roof from the ground would be putting civilians within a couple miles downrange at risk of friendly fire.
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well, I missed that tidbit completely. The data really is garbage.
...For amusement's sake, I expect the reports of him using iron sights are correct, and the scope mentioned there is just people embellishing via the telephone game.
Presumably the officers armed with rifles were SWAT, and I would expect them to train on suppressing fire. Then too, I don't think it's a very difficult or unintuitive technique; it's just taking very marginal shots for lack of better ones. There's also no shortage of examples of officers spraying a suspect or assailant down with rapid semi-auto fire, whether justified or not, and the line between that behavior and intentional suppression is nebulous.
There's some (slightly) better drone footage out there that makes it look to me like maybe a holosight or similar:
https://is2.4chan.org/pol/1721682308162980.webm
Not a honkin big scope, but you wouldn't need one at that distance. (and it looks a bit bigger than even the clunkiest of iron sights to me?)
Sorry to be That Guy - any uncensored footage?
Yes, I flew down there in my helicopter and filmed the scene in 4k -- but for the Motte I like to post VHS-tier video and blur out anything interesting.
(no of course not, I found that on /pol -- I think it was from some news heli, so the desire not to air exposed brains is understandable I guess.)
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To be clear, the shooter was tagged as suspicious (but apparently not "threatening") for using a rangefinder earlier on. They didn't speculate much, but a rangefinder is usually a monocular-type handheld thing, often with a laser, and not the same thing as a scope which is something attached directly to a rifle. So telephone games happen a lot after events like this but actually nothing in this respect so far seems to be inaccurate. However, the thing about the roof slope seems to be fairly well established -- the barn the counter-snipers were on was not actually much higher elevation than the building the shooter was on, and distances and geometry make the angles not very good for the counter-snipers, giving the shooter a lot of cover.
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