Police Snipers Noticed Trump Shooter Nearly 2 Hours Before Assassination Attempt, Texts Reveal

Police snipers on a roof after shots were fired while Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump was speaking at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024. AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar

Police snipers noticed Thomas Matthew Crooks at the site of former President Donald Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, nearly two hours before the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump, newly released text messages reveal.

The assassination attempt—which led to former President Donald Trump’s right ear being grazed by a bullet—is the subject of several official investigations by Congress and the executive branch. On July 29, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) published several text messages sent by a counter-sniper of the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office indicating that he noticed Mr. Crooks acting suspiciously near the rally site at 4:26 p.m., which was an hour and 45 minutes before shots were fired at 6:11 p.m.

“Someone followed our lead and snuck in and parked by our cars just so you know,” wrote the unnamed officer, who was a counter-sniper assigned to the rally, in a text to a messaging group of other local police counter-snipers on duty. “He knows you guys are up there,” the officer writes to the other officers, adding details about Mr. Crooks’s location in a complex of buildings adjacent to the rally site.

At 5:38 p.m., another police counter-sniper, Gregory Nicol, wrote on the same group chat that Mr. Crooks was using a rangefinder to examine the rally site.

“I did see him with a rangefinder looking towards the stage. FYI. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out,” Mr. Nicol wrote, referring to Secret Service counter-snipers that were positioned close to the former president. He then asks others in the group to “call it in to command and have a uniform[ed officer] check it out.”

“I assumed that there would be somebody coming out to speak with this individual or, you know, find out what was going on,” Mr. Nicol told ABC News in an interview.

At 5:45 p.m., a police officer on the group chat shared pictures taken of Mr. Crooks walking around the AGR Building, which Mr. Crooks eventually climbed upon to shoot at former President Trump. The officer also shared photos of Mr. Crooks’s bicycle, which, at 5:52 p.m., is noted to have been moved from the spot in the photo.

The officers, at that point, indicate they’ve notified their command center about Mr. Crooks. Responding to a question from the command center, relayed by a member of the group, about Mr. Crooks’s “direction of travel,” an officer responds at 6 p.m., “Not sure. He was up against the building. If I had to guess towards the back. Away from the event.”

In reality, Mr. Crooks had managed to get atop the AGR Building to a vantage point about 400 feet from the former president’s podium. He was spotted crawling on the roof with a rifle by rally-goers, who alerted police as they recorded his movements. At 6:11 p.m., Mr. Crooks fired eight shots at former President Trump before he was shot and killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper.

It’s unclear at what point the command center began responding to the information relayed by the counter-snipers.

“We have to assume ... that command did something with it. We don’t know if they did,” said Mike Priolo, another police counter-sniper, told ABC News. “We had no communication with the Secret Service,” lead police counter-sniper Jason Woods told ABC News.

Mr. Grassley’s office also published a minute-by-minute timeline prepared by the Beaver County Sheriff’s Office that detailed what its personnel witnessed. That timeline, however, suggests that Mr. Crooks was “first observed” at 5:10 p.m. instead of 4:26 p.m., which is the timestamp on the text message sent by the unnamed officer.

“Local law enforcement were aware of gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks’ suspicious presence more than 90 minutes before he opened fire,” wrote Mr. Grassley’s office in a summary accompanying the evidence on its website.

“Local law enforcement officers had communicated Crooks’ presence to their federal counterparts ahead of Trump’s appearance on stage,” he added. Grassley previously published helmet-worn camera footage of a Beaver County tactical officer who, after the shooting, climbed atop the building’s roof and examined Mr. Crooks’s body.

The Secret Service has been criticized for not spotting Mr. Crooks as he climbed on the building’s roof. Shortly after the shooting, the agency’s director, Kimberly Cheatle, said that the sloped roof of the building complex prompted safety concerns that discouraged agents from being placed there. Ms. Cheatle resigned from her position on July 23 amid bipartisan criticism of her leadership.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told The Epoch Times, “We are committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure that never happens again.”