Newly released bodycam footage shows the moment a police officer is boosted onto the roof where would-be Donald Trump assassin Thomas Crooks was perched — and finds himself staring down the barrel of the gunman’s weapon.
The footage, obtained by Fox News Digital, came from the Butler Township police officer who climbed onto the roof of AGR International on July 13.
New bodycam footage showed officers at the scene where Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire.
The footage shows an officer climb the roof where the shooter was perched.
The officer can be seen being lifted up by another officer, then as he struggles to hoist himself up, he peers over the roof edge.
Within a moment, he drops back down to the ground and sprints out around the building, seemingly warning fellow officers and bystanders watching nearby.
Seconds later, Crooks would open fire on the former president’s rally, striking him in the ear and killing one bystander. The gunman was dead within seconds of his first shot.
Thomas Crooks was shot dead moments after he opened fire at the Trump rally. Obtained by NY Post
Trump pumps his fist defiantly after being struck by a bullet at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. APThe clip has no sound at first, but the audio turns on about halfway, through revealing the chaos of the scene.
“He’s got glasses, long hair,” the officer says, describing Crooks’ backpack and the AR-15 rifle he was carrying.
Everything we know about the Trump assassination attempt
- 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was identified as the shooter who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
- Crooks was shot dead by Secret Service agents.
- The gunman grazed Trump’s ear, killed a 50-year-old retired fire chief, and injured two other rally-goers.
- Investigators detailed Crooks’ search history to lawmakers, revealing that he looked for the dates of Trump’s appearances and the Democratic National Convention.
- Crooks’ search history also revealed a broad interest in high-profile people and celebrities, regardless of their political affiliation, FBI officials reportedly said.
- Trump exclusively recounted surviving the “surreal” assassination attempt with The Post at the rally, remarking, “I’m supposed to be dead.”
- High-profile politicians, including President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, addressed the nation about the shooting, calling it “a heinous, horrible and cowardly act.”
Over the officer’s radio, calls requesting an ambulance to the rally’s VIP tent can be heard.
After a moment of the officers standing back and encircling the building, they advance and begin boosting each other up onto the roof.
Thomas Crooks was shot dead moments after he opened fire at the Trump rally. WPXIThe officer who first peered over the top then requests to go back on the roof, and Crooks is seen lying dead with a long trail of blood flowing down the sloping rooftop.
That ledge he climbed onto was about 12 feet off the ground, and he fell about eight feet and sprained an ankle when Crooks pointed his weapon at him.
The officer was not able to draw his own gun on Crooks because both his hands were pinned as he tried to pull himself onto the roof, Butler Township police Lt. Matthew Pearson previously said — which is clearly visible in his bodycam footage.
The venue where the assassination attempt occurred.
Later in the footage, the officer appears to be angry that law enforcement agencies were not communicating on the same radio channels.
“Before you motherf—–s came up here, I popped my head up there like an idiot by myself, dude,” he says. “Then he turned around and I f—— dropped and I started f—— I was calling out, bro, f—— on top of the roof.”
“F—— we’re not on the same frequency?”
Additional body camera footage, obtained by the Wall Street Journal, showed Butler Township Police Department officers voicing their dissatisfaction with the Secret Service’s decision to leave the roof — located just 130 yards from where Trump was speaking — unoccupied.
“I f–king told them they need to post a guy f–king over here,” one officer is heard saying shortly after the shots rang out.
“Who?” another officer asks.
“The Secret Service,” the officer responds. “I told them that f–king Tuesday.”
The video also shows that there was some confusion about whether the roof was covered.
“I thought you guys were on the roof,” one officer tells the cop who claims to have warned the Secret Service.
“No, we were inside,” he responds. “I told them to post f–king guys over here.”
“I wasn’t even concerned about it because I thought someone was on the roof … how in the hell can you lose a guy walking back here if someone is on the roof?” the other officer wonders.
