Records show Trump rally gunman practiced dozens of times at Clairton Sportsmen’s Club

More details on the July 13 assassination attempt were made public Thursday.

New details surrounding the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump in Butler last month were rel eased Thursday, as a Capitol Hill lawmaker shared documents showing the gunman made dozens of visits to a local gun range and police released body camera footage of the moment an officer spotted the shooter on a rooftop.

Thomas Crooks, the wouldbe assassin, logged dozens of visits to a local sportsman’s club for rifle practice before shooting Trump and three other people at a July 13 rally in Butler County, according to records provided Thursday to the media by U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

The information released by Grassley showed that Crooks visited a rifle range the day before he opened fire at the Butler Farm Show grounds, striking the former president in the ear, killing rally-goer Corey Comperatore and seriously wounding two others.

Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, made frequent visits to Clairton Sportsmen’s Club to practice his shooting, including on some holidays.

Crooks became a member of the club — which spans 180 acres in West Mifflin and Jefferson Hills and boasts more than 2,000 members — on Aug. 10, 2023, according to the records from Grassley’s office.

The club has several rifle ranges, including at least one that is 200 yards. Investigators have said Crooks fired an AR-style rifle at the former president from the roof of a building less than 150 yards from Trump’s stage.

Crooks signed in for target practice 20 times within the first four months of his membership, the documents showed, and averaged three to six practices per month this year.

In total, Crooks signed in at the range 43 times.

Grassley’s office described Crooks’ visits as “intense preparation in the months prior to his attempted assassination of the former president.”

Crooks spent about 80% of his time at the gun club on rifle practice, according to the records.

Attendance logs show Crooks never brought a guest with him to the range, even when he spent holidays there. He logged time at the range on Valentine’s Day this year, and on Christmas and Halloween last year.

Crooks’ last visit to the gun range was logged at 2:45 p.m. on Friday, July 12 — the day before the rally, where he was fatally shot by a Secret Service sniper.

The Department of Homeland Security also used the range for police training on a day Crooks was not there, records show.

The documents were provided to Grassley’s office by the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club.

In the days after the shooting, club president Bill Sellitto told TribLive, “What happened was a terrible, terrible, terrible thing. That’s not who we are.”

The club condemned the violence in a statement from attorney Rob Bootay.

On Thursday, the club declined further comment, citing the active investigation Crooks tried out for Bethel Park High School’s rifle team as a freshman, but was rejected for poor marksmanship, according to The Associated Press.

But Bethel Park High School issued a statement disputing those reports, saying Crooks was never a member of the team, the school had no record of him trying out and the coach didn’t recall meeting him.

“However, it is possible that the shooter informally attended a practice, took a shot, and never returned,” the school said. “We don’t have any record of that happening.”

‘Who’s got eyes on him?’

The body camera footage was released by Butler Township on Thursday. It showed the moment a township police officer spotted the gunman, hoisted himself on the roof and tried to warn others before Crooks opened fire.

In a portion of the video that does not have audio, the officer, who is not identified, motions to another officer to help lift him atop the roof of the AGR building where Crooks positioned himself before firing on the former president and his supporters.

After peering over the roof briefly, the officer quickly drops back down and runs away from the building to retrieve a rifle from his police vehicle. Other law enforcement officers are seen running to the building.

Reports have indicated Crooks turned his gun on the officer — prompting the officer to jump down — just before repositioning and opening fire.

The video released Thursday does not capture Crooks turning his weapon on the officer. No audio is available for that portion of the recording.

The officer who saw Crooks before the shooting started is heard later in the video hollering at colleagues about Crooks’ position on the rooftop.

“Who’s got eyes on him?” the officer asks at 6:12 p.m., as his colleagues scramble to try to find a ladder or other way to scale the roof.

“He’s got glasses, long hair,” the officer tells other law enforcement, adding Crooks also had an AR-style gun and a backpack.

Once a sniper shot Crooks, killing him with one bullet, the officer joins other law enforcement on the roof. His body camera shows a bloodied Crooks positioned facedown on the roof.

Officers are heard checking on each other, urging them not to step on shell casings and trying to figure out what happened.

“I’m [expletive] pissed,” one officer says in the video, pacing the rooftop near Crooks’ body. “We couldn’t find him.”

It was one of a dozen videos released that showed footage recorded on officers’ bodyworn cameras and in-vehicle cameras.

In another video, local officers are heard questioning how the shooter was able to sneak by law enforcement, position himself on the rooftop and open fire.

“I [expletive] told them they need to post guys [expletive] there,” one officer tells another, clarifying he told the Secret Service on Tuesday to post snipers on the building. “I told them to post [expletive] guys over here.”

Other video clips show officers urging rally-goers to get away from the building as they check it for explosives and gathering witnesses to be interviewed by the Secret Service.

There has been friction and sniping between local law enforcement and the Secret Service, with each blaming the other for slip-ups that left the rooftop, outside the Secret Service perimeter, unguarded and unmonitored.