Disturbing footage has surfaced showing Thomas Crooks, the individual who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump, practicing dry-firing a gun in a tactical position within his residence.
These brief yet alarming videos, which are believed to have been uploaded by 20-year-old Crooks himself, were subsequently removed from the internet following his shooting incident that nearly claimed Trump’s life while he was campaigning as the Republican nominee, according to excerpts shared by Candace Owens on her podcast this Wednesday.
The cell phone footage depicts Crooks showcasing a handgun on a quilt of his neatly arranged bed.
In a sudden flip of the camera, Crooks is seen, appearing thin and emotional, dressed in athletic clothing, in a sparsely decorated room adorned with a Marvel superhero poster.
He then picks up the blurred handgun and adopts a tactical stance, dry-firing at an unseen target off-camera.
In another brief video, also allegedly uploaded by Crooks, he demonstrates similar gunplay with a more intimidating demeanor.
This time, Crooks aims the handgun in front of a target sheet adorned with blue circles, again assuming a practiced stance while standing perfectly still.
Crooks’s online activity has revealed a morbid fascination with assassinations, mass shootings, firearms, and explosives.
Analysis of a laptop linked to Crooks that the FBI examined, unveiled that he searched for ‘How far was Oswald from Kennedy?’ on July 6, 2024—just a week prior to his attack on Trump during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
mass shootings, JFK assassination specifics, and how to create
explosives. AP
Former FBI director Chris Wray testified to Congress that Crooks did not appear on the radar of federal law enforcement prior to his attempt to assassinate at the rally.
Crooks also conducted research on Ethan Crumbley, the Oxford High School shooter responsible for the deaths of four students and injuries to seven others on November 30, 2021.
His online inquiries also extended to other mass casualty incidents, including searches for bomb-making instructions, according to sources cited by CNN last year.
His final online search occurred just moments before he was shot in the head—searching for adult content on his encrypted Samsung device, as reported by the FBI.
Prior investigations into Crooks’s search history align with those shared by Owens in her report on Tuesday, which mentioned searches including “Deadliest Mass Shooting in World,” “Pulse nightclub police body camera,” “Fertilizer bomb,” and “How to create a Molotov cocktail.”
Reportedly, Crooks’s online activities also included violent comments on YouTube, one of which from 2019 advocated for extreme actions against “Trump hating democrats,” according to the findings.
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