The gunman who tried to kill former President Trump searched Google a week before the shooting for “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy,” referring to the 1963 presidential assassination, the clearest indication yet that the 20-year-old plotted a similar attack. FBI Director Christopher Wray disclosed the gunman’s search at a congressional hearing Wednesday where he provided new information on what led up to the July 13 shooting at a Trump campaign rally in western Pennsylvania. “That’s a search that obviously is significant in terms of his state of mind,” Wray said. The gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, researched the Kennedy assassination on July 6, around the time he registered to attend the rally, a search of his laptop found. “He was interested in public figures more broadly, and, I think this is important ... he became very focused on former President Trump and this rally,” the FBI director said, reports the Wall Street Journal.
Multiple investigations are under way into how Crooks was able to open fire from the roof of a building 400 feet away from where Trump spoke, killing one spectator, critically injuring two others and leaving the former president with a graze wound to the ear. A Secret Service sniper team shot back, killing him. Crooks fired an AR-15 rifle with a collapsible stock, Wray said, a feature that may explain why no witnesses reported seeing him carrying the weapon before the attack. He had purchased a ladder the same day as the shooting. Authorities believe that he used mechanical equipment on the ground and piping on the side of the building to get on the roof. Searches of his cellphone and other electronics and interviews with hundreds of people paint a portrait of a loner with few regular face-to-face contacts, the director said. Crooks bought the rifle from his father, who kept 14 legally purchased firearms in the home they shared an hour south of the rally site in Butler, Pa. Crooks started planning the attack well before the rally, visiting the site a week earlier and on the morning of the shooting. About two hours before Trump was set to speak, Crooks was able to fly a drone over the vicinity for 11 minutes.
Comments