Newly released text messages from police snipers at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13th reveal that law enforcement had been monitoring the suspicious activities of gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks long before he fired at former President Trump, almost two hours prior to the incident.
This assassination attempt has become a subject of multiple official investigations by the US Congress and executive bodies. On July 29th, Senator Chuck Grassley released several text messages sent by a sniper from the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office. The texts indicate that the sniper had noticed Crooks behaving suspiciously near the rally site at 4:26 pm, about 1 hour and 45 minutes before Crooks opened fire at 6:11 pm.
An unnamed officer in the sniper group message wrote, “Someone is following us, sneaking in, parked by our car, just wanted you all to know.” He was assigned as a counter-sniper at the rally site and mentioned in the message, “He knows you all are up there,” providing detailed location information about Crooks within a building complex.
At 5:38 pm, another police sniper, Gregory Nicol, messaged in the same group chat that Crooks was using a rangefinder to survey the rally site.
Nicol wrote, “I definitely saw him with the rangefinder looking at the stage. Just for info. If you want to notify the Secret Service snipers to keep an eye out.” He was referring to the Secret Service snipers deployed near Trump. He then requested others in the group to “call command to have a uniformed officer check.”
During an interview with ABC News, Nicol expressed, “I figured someone was going to come out and talk to this person or, you know, find out what’s going on.”
At 5:45 pm, an officer shared photos of Crooks walking near the AGR building, the same building where he eventually fired at Trump. The officer also shared a photo of Crooks’ bicycle. By 5:52 pm, the officer noted that Crooks’ bicycle had been moved from the location in the photos.
Officers at that time indicated that they had informed the command center about Crooks’ situation. At 6 pm, an officer responded to the command center’s inquiry about Crooks’ “direction of travel” saying, “Not sure. He’s against the building. Given what I have to guess, move away from the event.”
In fact, Crooks had successfully climbed onto the roof of the AGR building, occupying a favorable position approximately 400 feet from Trump’s stage. A rally attendee spotted him with a rifle on the roof and alerted authorities while recording Crooks’ actions. At 6:11 pm, Crooks fired 8 shots at Trump before being fatally shot by Secret Service snipers.
It is unclear when the command center began responding to the messages relayed by the snipers. Police sniper Mike Priolo told ABC News, “We have to assume… that the command did something with it. We don’t know if they did.” Police sniper Jason Woods mentioned, “We had no affiliation with the Secret Service.”
Senator Grassley’s office also released a minute-by-minute timeline prepared by the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office documenting the observed events by law enforcement. However, the timeline indicates that the gunman Crooks was “initially observed” at 5:10 pm, not 4:26 pm as indicated in the unnamed officer’s text message timestamp.
In a summary of evidence posted on his website, Grassley wrote, “Local law enforcement had noted the suspicious presence of the gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks over ninety minutes before he fired.”
He added, “Local law enforcement had alerted federal law enforcement about Crooks’ presence before Trump took the stage.”
Previously, Grassley had released a video captured by a tactical officer in Beaver County following the shooting. The officer climbed the roof of a building post-incident to inspect Crooks’ body.
The Secret Service faced criticism for not detecting Crooks when he climbed onto the roof. Shortly after the shooting, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle stated that the sloped roof of the building complex raised safety concerns, leading to reluctance in assigning personnel there. Cheatle resigned on July 23 amidst bipartisan criticism.
Secret Service Communications Director Anthony Guglielmi told Dajiyuan, “We are committed to understanding what happened before, during, and after the attempted assassination of former President Trump to ensure such incidents never occur again.”