- A 20-year-old man opened fire on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one rally attendee.
- A former classmate said the gunman was a poor shooter and was rejected from his high school rifle team.
- “He was asked not to come back because he was a bad shooter,” a classmate told ABC News.
The 20-year-old gunman who opened fire on former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday was a bad shooter, his former classmates said.
Jameson Myers, who said he went to elementary and middle school with the suspect, Thomas Matthew Crooks, spoke to ABC News after the shooting, which left one protester dead and two others injured.
Myers told ABC News that Crooks had tried out for their high school rifle team, but was rejected and told not to try out again.
“Not only was he not on the team, he was asked not to return because his shooting was poor, deemed dangerous,” Myers said.
Myers graduated in 2022 with Crooks. According to CBS News, Myers was on the Bethel Park High School shooting team. He told CBS that he and Crooks were close in elementary school but not in high school.
Another anonymous member of the rifle team told ABC News that the men believed Crooks was “not really cut out” to join them.
“He also shoots badly,” the team member said.
But Myers added that Crooks, who was killed at the scene by Secret Service agents, never acted like “a political revolutionary” and that he was “a very nice, even sweet person.”
The rifle team coach declined to respond to ABC News’ inquiries. The school district told the outlet that Crooks “never appeared on a roster” and there was “no record” of him attending tryouts.
The FBI confirmed Crook’s identity to Business Insider on Sunday morning.
Crooks was a nutrition assistant at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, the center said in a statement obtained by The Hill on Sunday. The motive for the attack, as of this writing, was unclear.
Outside of school, Crooks is a member of the Clairton Sporting Club, a club with several pistol and rifle shooting ranges in Clairton, Pennsylvania, CBS News reports.
He used a legally purchased 5.56 AR-style rifle to shoot at Trump and the crowd, FBI Pittsburgh Office Director Kevin Rojek said on a call with reporters Sunday.
Trump was seen ducking for cover after gunshots rang out at Saturday’s rally. Photographers later snapped photos of Trump standing and pumping his fist toward the crowd in a show of defiance, with blood streaks on his face.
He was then escorted off stage by Secret Service agents.
The top of his ear was hit by a bullet, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Sunday. In an interview with the New York Post on Sunday, he said he was lucky to be alive.
“I shouldn’t be here, I should be dead,” Trump said.
“Because of luck or because of God, many people say, because of God I am still here,” he added.
He also told the Post that he thought Secret Service agents did an “incredible job” in shooting the shooter dead.
