Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, was spotted on the roof 26 minutes before the shooting occurred.
The FBI has confirmed that Crooks was seen by law enforcement members from the Allegheny County Police Department on the roof of a building with a clear sightline to the former president.
Despite being alerted to his presence, authorities failed to confront him, allowing him to remain hidden for nearly 30 minutes before he opened fire on Trump and the crowd.
The shocking new allegations have raised questions about how Crooks was able to evade detection and carry out the attack, which left Trump wounded and a member of the crowd dead.
A sniper even took a picture of the suspect with a rangefinder and radioed to the command post before the Trump assassination attempt, CBS reports.
Crooks was on local police and Secret Service’s radar for nearly a half hour before the shooting attempt, but he kept “disappearing” before he climbed on the roof.
“Crooks disappeared again and then came back a THIRD time with a backpack,” CBS reported. “The snipers called in with information that he had a backpack and said he was walking towards the back of the building.”
It gets crazier. The New York Post reports local police were INSIDE the building that Thomas Crooks climbed on top of. The building was carved out of the Secret Service security perimeter and delegated to local police despite it being a “well-known high priority vulnerability.”
Before the shooting, a police officer actually confronted Crooks, who had a rifle. The police officer scrambled back down the ladder, allowing the shooter to fire at least five rounds at the former president.