Would-be Donald Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks was possibly spotted lurking around the former president’s campaign rally an hour before the shooting.
New footage from Saturday’s rally shows Crooks walking back and forth near a building just outside the secured perimeter at around 5:06 p.m., Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 reports.
Crooks, whose face was not clearly visible in the video, could be seen looking around the area behind the fencing listlessly just a few feet away from the avid Donald Trump fans waiting for the former president to kick off the event.
The gunman opened fire with an AR-style semi-automatic rifle from the roof of a building about 130 yards from Trump at 6:11 p.m.
The cameraman who captured the chilling scene said he just wanted to get a panning shot of the crowd when he realized hours later that he may have caught the gunman was canvassing the area.
“When I saw the video last night, when I was going back through my video clips and saw him, I was chilled to the point where I couldn’t fall asleep right away,” the cameraman, who did not want to give his name, told News 4.
The video appears to be the latest evidence of Crooks suspicious behavior in the moments leading up to the shooting.
Crooks was spotted by law enforcement officers, using a rangefinder and looking at a phone, nearly an hour before Trump took the stage.
Here’s the latest on the assassination attempt against Donald Trump:
- Everything we know about Trump’s assassination attempt as authorities work to uncover sniper’s motive
- What we know about Thomas Matthew Crooks, gunman who tried to assassinate Trump at Pa. rally
- Grateful, defiant Trump recounts surviving ‘surreal’ assassination attempt at rally: ‘I’m supposed to be dead’
- Local counter-sniper team was inside building where Trump shooter climbed on the roof and opened fire: sources
He first caught the eye of law enforcement around 3 p.m. that day when he passed through the security screening area with the rangefinder, a device similar to binoculars used by hunters, according to Pittsburgh’s WXPI.
At around 5:30 p.m., a Beaver County Emergency Services Unit officer took a picture of Crooks crawling on the ground and seemingly scoping out a spot for the assassination attempt.
About 15 minutes later, the cop spotted Crooks a second time, now on the roof, and took a second picture and called it into the command center.
Despite the call, Crooks would go on to fire at Trump 26 minutes later, injuring the former president and two other men and killing a hero firefighter Corey Comperatore.