Would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks was considered a good shot by a fellow shooting range classmate who met the gunman just weeks before he made an attempt on former President Donald Trump’s life.
Air Force veteran Bill Jenkins said Crooks, 20, was very comfortable handling firearms when the two were the only students at a June 22 intermediate handgun course in Cranberry, Pennsylvania.
“The course went on for three hours and I could see this kid was confident with guns,” Mr. Jenkins, 62, told The Sun, a British tabloid. “When we went to the range he started shooting straight away. It seemed like he had experience with weapons.”
Crooks and his father belonged to a gun club near their home Bethel Park. Authorities found more than a dozen guns while searching his family’s home.
Mr. Jenkins told the newspaper that Crooks hit a bull’s-eye on a target from 10 yards away at the Keystone Shooting Center.
“I congratulated him on how good he’d done and he just laughed,” Mr. Jenkins said.
Crooks was about 150 yards away when he opened fire with a rifle on Mr. Trump and other rallygoers during the former president’s campaign event in Butler County on July 13.
The gunman shot and killed one man, wounded two others and bloodied Mr. Trump with a grazing wound to his ear. Secret Service snipers killed Crooks seconds after he fired off eight rounds into the crowd.
Multiple security lapses at the Trump rally — such as allowing Crooks to perch himself on a roof overlooking the main stage — have brought intense scrutiny on Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle.
She is set to testify Monday before the GOP-led House Oversight Committee, though multiple Republican lawmakers and now one Democrat have already demanded she step down.
“I am calling on Director Cheatle to resign immediately following last weekend’s shooting of a Presidential candidate in Western Pennsylvania,” Brendan Boyle, a Democrat from the Philadelphia area, posted Saturday on X. “The evidence coming to light has shown unacceptable operational failures. I have no confidence in the leadership of the United States Secret Service if Director Cheatle chooses to remain in her position.”
Law enforcement officials said Crooks researched Michigan mass shooter Ethan Crumbley and Crumbley’s parents before carrying out his attack, according to CNN.
Crumbley killed four people and wounded seven others in the 2021 shooting at Oxford High School. Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison, while his parents were given 15-year sentences for failing to secure the pistol he used in the shooting.
Officials said Crooks also visited websites on how to make explosives as well. Authorities found makeshift explosives in his car and at his home.
Campaign appearance dates for Mr. Trump and President Biden, and the dates for the Democratic National Convention, were found on Crooks’ phone as well.
Mr. Jenkins, the handgun classmate of Crooks, said he was interviewed by the FBI days after the shooting.
Mr. Jenkins said he feared that he and the handgun instructor’s shared support for Mr. Trump may have influenced Crooks’ assassination attempt.
“Looking back, I think he was biting his tongue. Nothing we discussed will have sat well with him. It crossed my mind — did that conversation help push him over the edge?” Mr. Jenkins told The Sun. “It freaks me out a little because a person has died. I was sitting next to real evil there, it really scares me.”
Former fire chief Corey Comperatore, 50, was shot and killed at the rally while shielding his family from gunfire.
David Dutch and James Copenhaver were also severely wounded in the shooting, though both are expected to survive.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.
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