Thomas Crooks, the man who attempted to kill Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, is shown in chilling videos purportedly dry-firing a handgun in his bedroom.
Crooks had shot the Republican presidential nominee while Trump was addressing a crowd, striking his ear. The undated clips were reportedly uploaded online by Crooks but were later ‘scraped’ following the assassination attempt, according to political commentator Candace Owens, who shared excerpts on her podcast.
What the video shows
The alleged video opens with a handgun resting on a quilt on a neatly made bed. The camera then pans to Crooks, dressed in athletic wear, in a sparsely decorated bedroom that includes a Marvel poster behind the 20-year-old.
Crooks picks up the handgun, assumes a tactical stance, and appears to dry-fire at an imaginary target outside the camera’s view.
Another reportedly existing video depicts Crooks practicing similar maneuvers in a more menacing manner. He allegedly holds the handgun in front of what appears to be a sheet of target paper marked with blue circles and adopts a tactical stance before standing motionless, according to the New York Post.
Crooks’ digital footprint reportedly revealed a fascination with mass shootings, assassinations, explosives, and firearms. The FBI examined his laptop and discovered a Google search on July 6, 2024—just a week before the Butler incident—for “How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?” Authorities also noted that Crooks’ final search, before he was fatally shot, involved pornography on his encrypted Samsung phone.
Earlier reports of Crooks’ search history align with what Owens shared. She claimed his searches included ‘Deadliest Mass Shooting in World’ and ‘How to make a Molotov cocktail.’ His online history allegedly contained violent remarks as well, including a 2019 comment on a YouTube video suggesting that heads of ‘Trump hating Democrats’ should be chopped off.
