Hours after a bullet grazed former US president Donald Trump’ ear at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday sending shockwaves throughout the country, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified the assassin as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.

“The FBI has identified Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, as the subject involved in the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump on July 13, in Butler, Pennsylvania,” the FBI said in a statement.

The investigation agency has now released a photo of the young attacker. The image shows the 20-year-old wearing glasses and smiling into the camera. 

Crooks was shot down by Secret Service snipers after he fired multiple shots at the former US president in the rally from a nearby rooftop. Witnesses claimed they tried to warn the secuirty officials about a man moving from roof to roof nearby and laying on his stomach with a gun pointed at the rally. 

An assault rifle, AR-15, was found near his body.

Described as a “quiet, lonely” student, Crooks had graduated in 2022 from Bethel Park High School, and received a $500 “star award” from the National Math and Science Initiative.

A registered Republican, the upcoming November 5 election would have been the first time he would have voted in a presidential election.

His schoolmates labelled him as “socially reserved” and did not recall him ever discussing politics or Trump but mentioned that he was often bullied at school. “He was quiet but he was just bullied. He was bullied so much,” a student told local US media.

After graduating, he had been working at a nursing home.

Following the attack, a “suspicious device” was found inside his car, which is now being inspected by bomb technicians. Officials are now searching through his phone.

The Sunday attack was a close call for Trump, who is currently in the middle of a bid to be re-elected as the President of the United States. Videos show that a last second tilt of his head saved the leader’s life as the bullet clipped his ear.

A video showed the 78-year-old Republican leader, with blood smeared on his face, raising his fist and muttering “Fight! Fight!” as Secret Service agents whisked him off the stage after the attack.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is helped off the stage by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, former U.S. President Donald Trump became the target of an assassination attempt. The Associated Press (AP) learnt from his campaign representatives that the former U.S. President was doing “fine”. Trump had earlier taken to his social media website to enumerate that a bullet pierced his upper part of the right ear. “I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place,” he wrote.

Trump rally shooting live updates

Law enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have identified the shooter as Thomas Matthew Crooks (20) of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Further, the U.S. Secret Service informed about the shooter having been “neutralised” and is dead. They also informed that one spectator was killed and two were critically injured.  

July 13 was not the first time that the 78-year-old‘s life was under threat. Similar attempts have been made as far as back as in 2016 when he ran for President for the first time.  

2016: An attempt and a scare 

In November 2016, a youth was arrested when he tried to wrestle a gun from a police officer at a Trump rally in Las Vegas. He later told investigators about wanting to steal the gun in order to kill the then Presidential candidate. Identified as Micheal Steven Sandford, the 19-year-old British national was immediately arrested. News agency Reuters learnt from court filings that the teenager had been attempting to kill the Presidential candidate for a year. Furthermore, he decided to act upon it now because he “finally felt confident about trying it.” The UK-teen was sentenced to a year in prison.  

A month later, Trump again found himself in a situation albeit this time it was a scare. He had to be rushed off the stage by U.S. Secret Service during a rally in Reno, Nevada after someone in the crowd yelled “gun”. However, the federal agency could not find a weapon. Trump came out later amid loud cheers, stating, “Nobody said it was going to be easy for us, but we will never be stopped, never ever be stopped.” 

The Ricin attempts in 2018 and 2020

Attempts at causing harm to Trump were also prevalent during his stay at the Oval Office. The modus operandi this time around was ricin. As described by the U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, it is a poisonous substance found naturally in castor beans. If the beans are chewed and swallowed, they release ricin and can cause injury or poison them.  

In 2018, William Clyde Allen III, a former enlisted sailor in the U.S. Navy confessed to have sent letters containing castor beans to then President Trump, FBI Director Chris Wray, Secretary of Defence James Mattis and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson. North America-based news houseCNN learnt from people investigating the occurrence that letters contained “messy handwriting on the envelopes” with one of them containing an index card that read “Jack the missile bean” and “stock powder”.  

Another such attempt was made in 2020. This time around, it involved a dual citizen of Canada and France. Pascale Cecile Ferrier, 55, admitted having sent threatening letter containing the poisonous substance to the White House and to eight Texas State law enforcement officials. According to court documents, Ferrier had made ricin at her home in Quebec, Canada.

Earlier in September 2020, the Canadian resident had also proposed on social media that someone “please shoot Trump in the face”. Before the convicted act, she had driven from Canada to the border crossing in New York where she was intercepted for carrying firearms and ammunition. Having been in custody since then, Ferrier was later sentenced to 22 years in prison.

2023: Email threats 

A Chicago woman by the name, Tracy Marie Fiorenza (41) was arrested in August 2023 for sending then former President Donald Trump threats that entailed shooting him and his youngest son Barron Trump. According to CBS, she was charged with sending mails threatening to shoot the former President “straight in the face at any opportunity that I get”. In another such email earlier, Fiorenza had allegedly written, “I am going to slam a bullet in Baron (sic) Trump’s head with his father in self-defence.” According to The Guardian, the earlier email was sent to an unidentified head of an educational institution in southern Florida where Trump has his primary residence.  

According to CBS, a Facebook page linked to Fiorenza contained several anti-Trump posts, including an image of an effigy of the former President hanged on a tree. The page introduced her as a former social studies teacher a Chicago public school until she was fired in August 2020. However, the publication could not confirm if she was actually a teacher.  

The story so far: In a shooting incident under investigation as an attempted assassination attempt, former U.S. President Donald Trump was shot in the ear during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, leaving one person dead and two others critically injured.

Follow Trump rally shooting live updates here

The U.S. Secret Service, which provides former Presidents with lifetime protection, said Trump was safe while the suspected shooter was killed.

The attack marks the first attempt to assassinate a President or presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. Coming less than four months before the November 5 election and just days before Trump was to accept the Republican nomination for a third time to set up a potential rematch with President Joe Biden, the incident is likely to have a far-reaching impact on the presidential race and domestic politics.

Here’s what we know so far.

How did the shooting unfold? 

On July 13 evening, a few minutes after Trump took the stage in Butler and began his speech, at least five shots rang out as the former U.S. President was talking about a spike in illegal border crossings. In one of the videos of the incident, Trump is seen clutching his right ear behind the podium before Secret Service agents dash toward him and cover him. “Get down,” the agents said as Trump dropped to the ground as gunfire set off panic.

A minute later, he emerged with his face streaked with blood. He pumped his fist in the air in a show of defiance, mouthing the words “Fight! Fight! Fight!” before the Secret Service rushed him to a black SUV.

Who was the shooter?

The suspected shooter, who attacked Trump from an elevated position outside the rally venue, was killed at the scene. The suspect has been identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Law enforcement reportedly recovered an AR-style rifle at the scene. No motive has been identified so far in the assassination attempt, the FBI has stated and added that the investigation is ongoing.

Crooks was a registered Republican, according to the state’s voter records. However, he had given $15 to a progressive political action committee in 2021, the day President Joe Biden took over, as per an AP report.

How did rally attendees react?

A witness recounted how a man next to him was shot dead during the apparent assassination attempt on the Republican presidential candidate. “I heard several gunshots. The man beside me suffered a gun shot to the head, was instantly killed [and] fell to the bottom of the bleachers. Another woman looked like she got hit in the forearm or hand,” the man told NBC News. He said it seemed the victim was “in the way of the shots between whoever was shooting the gun and the President.”

Republican Dan Meuser was in the front row with other elected officials and candidates when the shots rang out. “It was pretty clear after the first pop that it was gunfire,” he told AP. “It was just a lot of mayhem, and just a terrible, terrible tragedy, a terrible shame.”

Rico Elmore, vice-chairman of the Beaver County Republican Party, was sitting in a section for special guests, facing President Trump, when he heard what sounded like firecrackers. “So, everyone hesitated — and it was like, no, these are actual shots. So I yelled, ‘Get down!’” Mr. Elmore saw Secret Service agents helping Trump off the stage and then heard someone from his left calling for a medic. He took off his tie and jumped a barricade, but when he reached the person, Mr. Elmore saw he had been shot in the head. Mr. Elmore said he held the victim’s head but it was too late. “I mean, it was a horror,” Mr. Elmore said.

Chet Jack, a member of the state Republican Party, and his wife Beth were sitting in the bleachers facing Trump when they heard the shots. Beth ducked after hearing the shots and then a second round of shots. “I couldn’t see what happened with President Trump, because the minute I heard a shot, I yelled, ‘Everybody get down!’” Ms. Beth said. While Ms. Beth ducked for cover, Mr. Jack said he remained standing. He said he believed the shots were coming from above, and that ducking wouldn’t protect him.

Is Trump safe? 

After the incident, Trump left for New Jersey to spend the night at his private gold club. He wrote on his Truth Social site that he, “knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realised then what was happening…” He thanked the Secret Service and law endorsement for their “rapid response”.

Trump also extended his condolences to the family of the person killed at the rally. “It is incredible that such an act can take place in our country. Nothing is known at this time about the shooter, who is now dead,” he said.

Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said his father was “in great spirits.” “He will never stop fighting to save America, no matter what the radical left throws at him,” Trump Jr. said in a statement.

What has Biden said?

President Joe Biden, meanwhile, returned to Washington from Delaware earlier than planned following the attack at the Trump rally. The White House said President Biden also spoke with former President Donald Trump.

“I’m grateful to hear that [Trump is] safe and doing well. I’m praying for him and his family and for all those who were at the rally, as we await further information … There’s no place for this kind of violence in America,” the U.S. President said in a statement.

Vice-President Kamala Harris said she was “relieved that he [Trump] is not seriously injured.” “We are praying for him, his family, and all those who have been injured and impacted by this senseless shooting,” she said in a statement.

“Violence such as this has no place in our nation. We must all condemn this abhorrent act and do our part to ensure that it does not lead to more violence.”

What is the world saying?

The deadly incident sent shockwaves across the globe, with leaders uniting to condemn the attack and denounce political violence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he was “deeply concerned” by the attack on his friend.

“Violence has no place in politics and democracies. Wish him speedy recovery… Our thoughts and prayers are with the family of the deceased, those injured and the American people,” the PM added.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was “sickened” by the shooting, while a spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office denounced all forms of political violence. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the incident “concerning and confronting.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was shocked. Jordan Bardella of the French far-right National Rally party said “Violence is the poison of any democracy.”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she was “following with apprehension” updates from Pennsylvania and wished Trump a speedy recovery.