Overview

• Investigators accessed encrypted logs showing Crooks searched for terms like “major depressive disorder,” firearms instructions and JFK assassination distances in the weeks before the July 13, 2024 rally.
• The FBI traced at least 25 online weapons purchases and over two gallons of nitromethane that Crooks procured under aliases and encrypted networks.
• Crooks climbed onto an unsecured rooftop at the Butler, Pennsylvania rally, firing a bullet that grazed Trump’s ear and killed an innocent bystander.
• A Secret Service counter-sniper fatally shot Crooks seconds after the attack in a rapid response that prevented further harm.
• Authorities are probing how Crooks’s undetected mental health decline and online secrecy escaped early detection and contributed to the security breach.