The Gunman Dvd

[Lynn Hepler]

FederalBureau of Investigation Director Christopher Wray, seen here in December 2023, on Wednesday gave lawmakers an update on the investigation into the July 13 assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images hide caption

The gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump conducted an online search a week before the shooting about the killing of former President John F. Kennedy, the FBI director said Wednesday.

The first time was a week before the event, when he spent roughly 20 minutes there. The second time was the morning of the Trump rally, when he appears to have been on site for roughly 70 minutes, Wray said.

Investigators now believe, Wray said, that Crooks climbed up onto the roof where he fired from by using "some mechanical equipment on the ground and vertical piping" on the side of the building. The bureau still has not determined, however, when the gunman got onto the roof.

The gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania fired eight bullets in under six seconds before he was shot and killed by a U.S. Secret Service sniper, according to an analysis of footage from the event by two audio experts, video analysis by CBS News and sworn statements from Pennsylvania State Police.

The gunman, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, killed one rally attendee and injured two others when he opened fire from a roof near the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. A bullet also grazed Trump's ear, creating a 2-cm-wide wound, according to Rep. Ronny Jackson, Trump's former White House physician.

In testimony on Tuesday at a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing about the assassination attempt, Pennsylvania State Police Col. Christopher L. Paris told lawmakers that eight casings were recovered from the gunman's location.

Video and audio analysis from the shooting indicates the gunman fired eight shots. Audio experts Rob Maher of Montana State University and Steven Beck of Beck Audio Forensics told CBS News they identified 10 gunshots from the recordings of the event. The first eight rounds had similar acoustic characteristics and originated from the same location. Beck said these eight discharges, fired in approximately 5.2 seconds, were consistent with the AR-15-style rifle the shooter used.

The final two gunshots were likely from law enforcement and came from two different firearms in two different locations, the audio analysis indicates. The first of these two gunshots was fired approximately 5.5 seconds after the gunman opened fire, Beck said. The gunman stopped firing immediately, indicating this bullet hit him. A final shot was fired 10 seconds later.

CBS News analysis of social media footage showed that one of the rally attendees injured in the shooting, David Dutch, fell to the floor of the bleachers after the second gunshot was fired. Another injured attendee, James Copenhaver, fell to the ground as the fourth to eighth gunshot was fired.

On Tuesday, Kimberly Cheatle resigned from her position as director of the U.S. Secret Service after facing a bipartisan grilling on Capitol Hill on Monday. President Biden thanked Cheatle for her decades of public service in a White House statement.

Several investigations into the circumstances surrounding the shooting are underway. In addition to the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general has opened two probes to evaluate the Secret Service's process for securing an event and determine the preparedness level of the agency's Counter Sniper Team to respond to threats. Officials said the inspector general may decide to open additional investigations as well.

As federal investigators continue to probe how a gunman managed to climb atop a roof and fire a barrage of shots at former President Donald Trump in an apparent assassination attempt on Saturday, multiple witnesses said they tried to point out the suspect to police and Secret Service agents before gunfire erupted.

Roughly eight minutes after Trump took the stage at a campaign rally in Butler Township, Pennsylvania, witnesses said they saw the alleged gunman shimmying up the sloping roof of the American Glass Research building outside the security perimeter of the rally.

The building is within 400 feet of the rally podium where Trump was speaking and was being used by local police as a staging area when the gunman got on the roof, U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said in an exclusive interview with ABC News.

Witness Ryan Knight, who was working at the rally selling pizza slices and bottled water with his boss, said he was standing outside the security perimeter at a fence line when someone standing next to him said \"This guy's got a gun\" and pointed.

\"I look over at the AGR building and there was a guy prone, laying down on the AGR roof,\" Knight told ABC News. \"At that point, I look over and the guy starts taking shots at the president. I am losing my mind. I'm thinking, 'Get down on the ground.'\"

According to a timeline of events pieced together by the ABC News video verification team, Trump took the stage at 6:03 p.m. local time to loud applause and at 6:05 p.m. began speaking: \"This is a big crowd. This is a big, big beautiful crowd.\"

Knight, who says he is a registered Republican and a supporter of the former president, explained that once Trump took the stage, he and his boss walked over to the fence line about 50 feet from the AGR building to listen to the speech.

Around that same time, Trump turned his head to the right to look at a Jumbotron flashing immigration statistics, according to video footage. About a minute later, the staccato of gunshots rang out and the GOP presidential nominee suddenly clutched his right ear and went to the ground after apparently noticing blood on his hand, according to the video.

A New York Times photographer took a photo that appeared to capture the path of a bullet whizzing by Trump's head. Three rallygoers were shot in the incident, including 50-year-old volunteer firefighter Corey Comperatore who was killed shielding his family from the gunshots, officials said. The two other rallygoers were listed in stable condition.

Mike and Amber DiFrischia of Adamsville, Pennsylvania, told ABC News that they arrived at the rally around 5:53 p.m. and decided to sit in the shade outside the security perimeter until Trump began to speak. The couple said they moved up to the fence line to listen to Trump. Amber DiFrischia said it was the first time she had attended a Trump rally.

\"We were only at the fence for maybe five minutes, Trump came on, and then shortly after he started speaking, my wife said, 'Michael what is going on behind us?'\" Mike DiFrischia said. \"We turned around and we saw people pointing and running and that's when we walked away from the fence and noticed that he [the gunman] was shimmying up the roof.\"

Butler County Sheriff Michael T. Slupe said law enforcement officials told him that a Butler Township police officer was vaulted onto the roof and confronted by the gunman who pointed his weapon at the officer.

According to the ABC News video verification team's timeline, gunfire erupted around 6:11 p.m. Investigators believe the gunman immediately opened fire after being interrupted by the Butler Township police officer.

Cheatle, the Secret Service director, told ABC News chief justice correspondent Pierre Thomas on Monday that local authorities were tasked with securing the building where the alleged shooter fired the shots and confirmed that local police were present inside the building while the shooter was on the roof.

\"In this particular instance, we did share support for that particular site and that the Secret Service was responsible for the inner perimeter,\" Cheatle said. \"And then we sought assistance from our local counterparts for the outer perimeter. There was local police in that building -- there was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building.\"

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, who oversees the Secret Service, told George Stephanopoulos on \"Good Morning America\" on Monday that the 20-year-old gunman, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, should never have been able to get a clear line of sight on the former president.

\"I don't have all the details yet, but it was a very short period of time,\" she said about the shooter being seen by witnesses before he opened fire. \"Seeking that person out, finding them, identifying them, and eventually neutralizing them took place in a very short period of time, and it makes it very difficult.\"

On the night of October 1, 2017, a gunman opens fire on a crowd attending the final night of a country music festival in Las Vegas, killing 58 people and injuring more than 800. Although the shooting only lasted 10 minutes, the death and injury tolls made this massacre the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at the time of the attack.

Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old retired man who lived in Mesquite, Nevada, targeted the crowd of concert-goers on the Las Vegas strip from the 32 floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel. He had checked into the hotel several days before the massacre.

Paddock began firing at the crowd at 10:05 p.m. using an arsenal of 23 guns, 12 of which were upgraded with bump stocks, a tool used to fire semi-automatic guns in rapid succession. Within the 10-minute period, he was able to fire more than 1,100 rounds of ammunition.

The roof was less than 150 meters (yards) from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target. For reference, 150 meters is a distance at which U.S. Army recruits must hit a human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M16 assault rifle in basic training. The AR-style rifle, like that of the gunman at the Trump rally, is the semiautomatic civilian version of the military M16.

James Comer, a Kentucky Republican who is the House Oversight Committee chairman, said he contacted the Secret Service for a briefing and called on Cheatle to appear for a hearing. Comer said his committee will send a formal invitation soon.

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