New Bodycam Footage Of Trump Rally Shooting Emerges

BUTLER TOWNSHIP, PA — New police bodycam footage released Thursday shows an officer climbing up to the roof of the building where Thomas Crooks was located just before he attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump.

The footage also shows local officers saying they had advised the Secret Service days earlier to post officers near the building from which Crooks fired.

The footage initially was obtained by CNN and Fox through public records requests.

It sheds new detail on the events of the July 13 rally in which Crooks fired eight shots from the rooftop, grazing Trump's ear. Three spectators were shot, one fatally, before a Secret Service sniper shot and killed Crooks from another rooftop nearby.

"I climbed the wall and I popped my head right in front of him bro, he’s got a book bag, he’s got mad (expletive) AR laying down," the officer who initially saw Crooks tells others ascending the building. “But watch out because he can (expletive) come right down on you over there.”

Later, the officer says: "Before you (expletives) came up here, I popped my head up there like an idiot, by myself, dude. He turned around. I (expletive) dropped.”

A separate video shows an officer complaining that he had strongly advised the Secret Service days earlier to post people by the building from which Crooks fired.

"I expletive told them they need to post the guys (expletive) over here," he said. "I told them that, the (expletive) Secret Service, I told them that (expletive) Tuesday. I told them to post (expletive) guys over here."

Additional footage shows officers standing over Crooks' lifeless body after he had been neutralized.

Also on Thursday, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IA, released documents revealing that Crooks made more than 40 visits to the Clairton Sportsmen's Club after he joined it in August 2023. One of those visits to the club gun range occurred the day before the assassination attempt.