Sniper took picture of Trump rally shooter, saw him use rangefinder before assassination attempt, source says
Sniper took picture of Trump rally shooter, saw him use rangefinder before assassination attempt, source says
The sniper radioed to a command post, according to a local law enforcement officer.
I hope all these sources get on the same page soon because I have some old head friends who read all this stuff and believe he was a Chinese national working for the Iranians, set up next to snipers in a building cleared by locals. They say he was then confronted after he climbed a ladder but before he bear-crawled 25 feet to aim, only to be interrupted by local cops forcing him to fire quickly but was killed by snipers who had been watching him use a range finder for hours.
Please get it together, all these 50-year-old conspiracy theorists are going to start having heart attacks lol.
189Gen X isn’t the problem here. It’s boomers. It’s always been boomers who were the problem.
75Oh now there old friend, I wasn't making a generalization as to a whole ass generation. I am sure I could commiserate with you as to the fuckery boomers have shit down our backs since they traded in free love for free hate but I try real hard not to drag ass on a bitch after 5pm if you get my meaning.
20All that lead they consumed growing up. Distorted their brains and making them clinically insane.
5Permanently Deleted
1
I’d suggest reading the article. It gives the play by play of how the events occurred. I think you’re reading headlines and then constructing your own picture of what happened.
2Bless your heart, I read it right before I posted. Thank you kindly for the advice though.
At some point, everything I wrote was in an article just like this one, only citing "sources in (insert official entity here)" and always starting with "sources say." Well, except for the Iranian one, that one was a separate incident but a buddy of mine mentioned it right before I read the post so I added it.
8
At this point, I'm almost convinced they purposefully gave him the chance to take his shot.
98Almost like... it was staged
-31Is this a pun because it happened on a stage?
20
This is such a clown show...
One sniper inside spotted the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, outside and looking up at the roof, observing the building and disappearing, according to the officer who spoke to CBS News. The sniper observed Crooks as he returned to the building, sat down and looked at his phone. At that point, one of the local snipers took a picture of Crooks.
Next, the local sniper observed Crooks looking through a rangefinder, an instrument routinely used by marksmen to determine the distance of a target, and he immediately radioed to the command post, according to the local law enforcement officer. The local sniper also attempted to send the photo of the gunman up the chain of command.
Officials then lost track of Crooks, who disappeared, but soon returned for a third time with a backpack. The local sniper team called for backup — alerting the command post that the gunman had a backpack and was walking toward the back of the building.
Two other municipal police officers who heard the call for back-up attempted to climb onto the roof. Butler County Sheriff Michael Sloupe told CBS Pittsburgh station KDKA that an armed municipal officer with Butler Township was hoisted by another officer onto the roof of the building where the gunman had taken a position. Crooks focused his rifle towards the officer who ultimately let go, falling off the roof. Moments later, the shooter began firing into the crowd.
In a reasonable world, Crooks wouldn't have even been allowed to go near the building. In a less reasonable world, Crooks would have been confronted by armed men as soon as they saw him look through a rangefinder. In a world that was the least bit reasonable, Crooks would have been shot the moment he took a gun out of his bag. But here we are.
93In a reasonable world Crooks wouldn't have had that weapon to begin with
28Apart from all the actual missed confrontations, it seems like you should just pay someone to be up on any building that's a security risk. They don't have to be super vigilant or highly trained, just the equivalent of a traffic cop working a construction site. Their presence alone would remove it as a threat.
19You'd think so, but apparently a slightly sloped roof is more that the Secret Service can handle.
Secret Service Chief: Trump Shooter’s Sloped Roof Left Unmanned Due to Safety Concerns
22
this is... ugh, so bad
7The only time where I am so goddamn glad the world is unreasonable
0In a reasonable world everyone in the vicinity would've left him alone. Police snipers would've given some tips and offered to help monitor wind conditions. Treason carries a death sentence.
In an even more reasonable world we wouldn't have to worry about a fascist being elected, but... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
-2Y'all keep saying "Reasonable world", but then Trump exists in that world, so I have no fucking clue what y'all are on about.
28
pulls out range finder from ~130 yards away. Proceeds to miss 7/8 shots completely on a 6ft3" 240lb man from the prone.
48He was a 20 year old kid who knew he was seconds away from death, who had just scared off a cop who had come up the ladder after him. I'm not sympathetic for him, but I could understand him being jittery and missing. Paper and clays don't shoot back. It's not true practice.
83Yah, jesus, I get shaky just lining up a nice sized deer still, and I've been hunting for years. And I don't have anyone breathing down my neck and 30 seconds to shoot.
The fact he just barely missed with a shitty AR-15 at over a hundred yards is a minor miracle.
12
Didn’t the first shot only miss because Trump turned his head? After the first one you’ve got to deal with recoil/nerves.
26A 100 yard shot with iron sights is much harder than most people understand.
9I didn't hear anything suggesting he used irons, that'd be a very odd choice. Most modern ARs don't come with irons or an optic and you can get red dots much better than just irons for under $200.
And irons would decidedly be harder but 100 yards still is very achievable by a novice who follows fundamentals.
3I think it's easier than you think, especially from prone and especially if you have any previous experience, which I assume the shooter did.
Here's a page out of a US military training manual to get an idea of how "wide" the front sight looks on a human size target. And remember, Trump is considerably wider than these silhouettes.
3
Have you ever fired a rifle?
-1Yes
1
This is the fundamental problem with protecting a candidate whose entire base is really big on guns, big on having guns on them, big on using every inch of their already permissive rights, and no matter what, the candidate's rally is a highly likely place for them to flex their pieces, even if they can only wave them around in the parking lot.
You can't just do the obvious thing and put rounds in everyone you see with a rifle. White girls are going to be out in the parking lot doing influencer dances with AR-15s. The muzzle might wave in Trump's direction while she boot scoots. We don't know what kind of orders that sniper had, but probably something along the lines of "look all these fuckers are going to be strapped if they can be strapped, stay chilly on the trigger and think twice, take no shots without orders."
By the time anybody acted like a clear threat, the bullets were already flying. So what if he had a rangefinder? That doesn't count as a "pull trigger now" level threat, not with this crowd. What an absolute bastard of a thing to provide overwatch for, you know?
28You would think, though, that it would be a "get some guys with guns onto that roof before he comes back" sign. 20 minutes is plenty of time to get at least some guys with pistols/their own AR-15s over there to secure the area. Also, simply having the right to own and carry weapons doesn't give you the right to point them at people intentionally, much less set up a sniper's nest on a divisive public figure. If a random guy in the crowd started pointing his pistol at Trump, then I'm fairly certain that would give Secret Service the right to at least tackle the guy or tase him, not to mention all the other people who would rush to control him.
3This is the fundamental problem with protecting a candidate whose entire base is really big on guns, big on having guns on them, big on using every inch of their already permissive rights, and no matter what, the candidate’s rally is a highly likely place for them to flex their pieces, even if they can only wave them around in the parking lot.
If police snipers started opening up on random people at a Trump rally who were simply parading around their most tacti-cool looking hardware, imagine how much safer the convention could be.
You can’t just do the obvious thing and put rounds in everyone you see with a rifle.
They absolutely can and they absolutely should. Treat the RNC like its Oakland during the OJ Riots or New Orleans during a hurricane. Just start blasting anyone who looks vaguely threatening and don't stop until you feel safe again.
Anyone who argues otherwise simply isn't serious when they say "Blue Lives Matter". I mean, ffs, can you even imagine what the world would have lost if Thomas Matthew Crooks had adjusted his aim and hit one of our brave servicemen?
Every single American police officer needs to treat these thugs and their guns with absolute seriousness. Lives are on the line. And not just the lives of school children. Important ones.
2This is pretty much my thinking. The sniper likely thought the kid was setting up a picture from the rooftop or something, and didn't want to shoot someone so young when they may very well be doing something harmless.
1
If only there was ONE MORE
GUNOFFICERSNIPERhe would NOT have been able to get a shot off!27It takes seventy trigger happy good guys to kill... Somebody.
11If only everyone in the crowd carried sniper rifles.
9Trump wasn't carrying. There's your problem. He didn't have self-defense and white boy goated with the sauce almost caught him lacking, but instead of busting it down sexual style he let us down failure style
5
Kind of surprising they didn't blast him as soon as he pulled out the rangefinder.
23White
36Sounds about white.
18Succinct
4
Can I assume the picture is in the article? No? Then it didn’t happen. /s
9lol all comments preferring a fascist be shot than giving the chance to implement fascism get removed. Its just like reddit now.
2Why did they try to kill hitler instead of just removing him smh
4
Being US president is like one of the most dangerous professions in the world. And that is the example of the level of expertise the US has in protecting one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.
1