Thomas Crooks asked his boss if he could have the day off, saying he had “something to do” before traveling to Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday and shooting the former president.
The would-be killer told his colleagues at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center that he would see them on Sunday.
But a Secret Service agent present at the meeting in Butler made sure he would be the last person Crooks saw when he came face to face with the killer before shooting him dead.
Officers spotted him and one of them pulled the trigger seconds after the 20-year-old Pennsylvania fire chief Corey Comperatore had been shot dead, seriously wounding two others and hitting Trump in the right ear as he climbed over a building 450 feet away.
“They were watching him as he was watching them,” a senior federal law enforcement official told CNN.
Police officers stand on a roof near the body of Thomas Matthews Crooks on Saturday, near the Trump rally
As Trump raised his fist to the crowd, some were heard cheering his name and chanting “USA” and “Make America Great Again”
The shocking video shows Crooks peering intently through the sights of his father’s AR-style weapon and firing toward the rally as bystanders scream from the base of the building.
Immediately a second volley of shots rings out and Crooks lies dead on the roof as the people on the ground gasp in horror.
“The Secret Service shouldn’t mess with people,” someone shouts. “Holy shit.”
On Tuesday, it was revealed that the killer had spent three hours inside the rally’s secure area before carrying out his attack, driving 50 miles north from his home in Bethel Park, on the southern edge of Pittsburgh.
At 3:00 p.m., he triggered a metal detector while trying to gain access to the location. He was found to be carrying a rangefinder, a sight normally used by hunters and snipers to shoot from a distance.
But security officers let him in and kept an eye on him until he left the secured area a short time later, the official said.
He then disappeared from the radar until shortly before 5:45 p.m., when a Beaver County Sheriff’s Office officer spotted him acting suspiciously near the outer perimeter and took a photo.
On Monday, it was revealed that a team of police snipers had been stationed in the same one-story AGR International building from which Crooks had fired, and had seen him outside three times in the minutes leading up to the attack.
A law enforcement official told CBS that no action was taken after one of the snipers first saw Crooks looking toward the roof of the building.
The 20-year-old would-be hitman was repeatedly seen and photographed by police officers before he scaled their building and opened fire
Police snipers returned fire after shots were fired while Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump spoke at the campaign event
Crooks’ father, Matthew, answered the door to several members of the FBI who entered the nondescript brick home shortly before 10 a.m. Tuesday.
The shooter disappeared around a corner before he was seen a second time. He sat down and looked at his phone, where one of the snipers took a picture of him.
The sniper then radioed a command post after seeing Crooks pull out his rangefinder.
But no further action was taken until Crooks appeared a third time, this time carrying a backpack and disappearing from view as he walked toward the back of the building.
The sniper team radioed the information, but failed to realize that Crooks had now scaled their building.
He climbed up the building’s air conditioning system and pulled himself onto the roof, where MAGA fans saw him crawling across the slope with his rifle. He alerted police to the danger.
“I thought to myself, ‘Why is Trump still speaking, why haven’t they taken him off the stage?’” one witness told the BBC. “The next thing you know, five shots are fired.”
Crooks was a nutritional assistant at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where he provided food and care to the elderly and sick who had just been discharged from the hospital.
“We are shocked and saddened to learn of his involvement as Thomas Matthew Crooks performed his duties without concern and his background checks were positive,” administrator Marcie Grimm said in a statement.
A colleague at the institution said Crooks never expressed political views at work and was not a “radical.”
“It’s hard to see everything that’s happening online because he was a very, very good person who did something very bad. I wish I knew why,” he added.
The would-be assassin was a registered Republican and a high school senior set to graduate in 2022. Documents show that on Inauguration Day in 2020, he made a donation to a progressive group supporting President Joe Biden.
Trump clutched his right ear as the first shots rang out at 6:12 p.m.
A timeline of the dramatic events that took place on July 13
He graduated from the Community College of Allegheny County in May with an associate degree in engineering, according to school officials who said they were “shocked and saddened by the terrible turn of events.”
Crooks’ father Matthew was seen for the first time since the shooting Tuesday morning when he opened the door of the family’s home to FBI agents.
A neighbor of Crooks’ sister Katie said her brother helped her move into her apartment nearby three years ago. He described her as a “hardworking” woman who worked as a janitor at a local high school and as a waitress in a restaurant.
Both of Crooks’ parents are behavioral therapists, and Crooks’ father said he was dismayed by his son’s actions.
Investigators have also not yet determined the motive of Crooks, who was barely active on social media.
But they found a bulletproof vest, three fully loaded magazines containing about 100 rounds and two remote-controlled explosive devices in Crooks’ car, according to a report Tuesday after the shooting.
The news raised concerns that Crooks planned to continue his killing spree if he escaped from the roof alive.
A bulletproof vest and a remote-controlled bomb were also found in the house where he lived with his parents.
The Justice Department, the Secret Service and the FBI will brief senators on the investigation into the shooting, which House Speaker Chuck Schumer announced Tuesday night, while the Secret Service faces scrutiny over its handling of security at the meeting.
From the ‘normal little boy’ who enjoyed playing soldiers and mini golf, to the increasingly disturbed young man who grew his hair long and isolated himself from his friends
Crooks, called Tom by his family, grew up in the suburb of Bethel Park, where his family still lives with his parents and older sister. The family home is shown here.
Republican officials gathering in Milwaukee called for tighter scrutiny of the agency as the federal government implements stricter security measures for Trump and others protected.
“Somebody, somewhere, really needs to answer a lot of serious questions,” Kelly Armstrong of North Dakota, a member of the House Judiciary and Armaments Committee, told DailyMail.com.
The investigation launched by President Joe Biden after the incident is being led by the Justice Department, not Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service.
“That speaks volumes,” said Jason Chaffetz, former chairman of the House Oversight Committee.