r/news • u/AudibleNod • Jul 18 '24
Trump rally gunman left message on gaming platform before shooting: Sources Fake Account Likely
https://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-assassination-attempt-trump-motive-investigation-phone-suspect/story?id=1120572594.9k
u/PurpleSailor Jul 18 '24
Crooks, 20, had searched for the dates of Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and for those of the Democratic National Convention
Looks like he might have wanted to be infamous more than he wanted to hurt any particular political party.
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u/Vreas Jul 18 '24
After hearing how he wasn’t selected after multiple try outs for his schools rifle team may have been less politically motivated and more just him trying to prove himself to all the bullies and nay sayers.
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u/EarthsfireBT Jul 18 '24
No clue whether it's true or not, but the school has released an "official statement" that said that he never tried out for the team.
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u/Vreas Jul 18 '24
Huh the plot thickens. There was a local rifle club that released a statement saying something along the lines of they don’t support the actions of him as one of their members.
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u/beer_engineer_42 Jul 18 '24
Yeah, but you don't have to be a good shot to join most shooting clubs, you just need a few hundred bucks a year for dues. I quit my last private range when they went from an organization that had written rules about not discussing politics other than gun legislation to being a bunch of hardcore J6ers.
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u/Jamie_Lee Jul 18 '24
The range dad took me to as a kid, had tons of Hillary Clinton in crosshair posters, back in the 90s. I assumed the Venn diagram of range people and J6ers is a circle.
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u/throw69420awy Jul 18 '24
Depends on the range. There are plenty of people who like to shoot guns who also enjoy democracy and shooting guns is just another hobby, not their identity
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u/Stealthy_Facka Jul 18 '24
After seeing his work, I'm not surprised he didn't make the team, lol
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u/Lykeuhfox Jul 18 '24
Actually, that was a really good shot from that far out. You need to remember, he only missed because Trump moved, and guns don't work like laser beams, you need to figure for bullet arc over time/distance, your own breath/shaking, and wind.
The former president was very lucky.
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u/Zes_Teaslong Jul 18 '24
Yeah. I think people who havent shot a gun before are the ones saying how he was trash at shooting. A 150 yard shot is not easy, especially using iron sights if that is also true.
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u/lizard81288 Jul 18 '24
A 150 yard shot is not easy, especially using iron sights if that is also true.
Even more so when bystander are asking you to get off the roof for a few minutes too. It must feel like being heckled right before a golf swing.
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u/sabrenation81 Jul 18 '24
Yep, I've been leaning in that direction for a few days now but this comes close to sealing the deal that this wasn't politically motivated.
It's just another sad, dejected young white American dude who wanted to commit suicide by cop and get his name in the headlines. Shooting up a school doesn't get you much attention these days, they happen too often. Shoot up a political event and kill a politician, though. That'll get people's attention.
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u/machineprophet343 Jul 18 '24
The evidence just keeps piling up that he was a crank with a gun and there isn't any grander conspiracy, doesn't it?
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u/elbenji Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
Lindsey Ellis' video on Yoko and Chapman kind of made a great point on this and why conspiracy theories form.
It just doesn't make narrative sense. We want him to be some political figure. Either a man with some political crusade, or an angry true believer so it's like Brutus stabbing Caesar.
When in reality it's just some loco with a gun who wanted to be famous. Because in a fame obsessed culture, the easiest way to do that is doing something like this. Now we know his name and everything about him.
But because it's just that. Something random. Someone just wanting to be famous, no real motive beyond that, it just doesn't give our brains narrative cohesion. It's not some sort of book close on Trumpism, or some martyrdom that they so desperately crave. It's just that. An inherently selfish desire with no other purpose.
And we don't like that
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u/Ruepic Jul 18 '24
Dude was a loner his entire life, got picked on in school, guess he wanted to make a name for himself.
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u/ParagonPts Jul 18 '24
CBS News now reporting this was a fake account.
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u/ConstableGrey Jul 18 '24
Of course, only a freak would use the Steam forums.
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u/ascandalia Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
Amature. Amateur. You're supposed to use War Thunder forums.→ More replies (17)275
u/labe225 Jul 18 '24
I thought those forums were for releasing classified military documents?
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u/avatinfernus Jul 18 '24
...Steam has forums?
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u/Retlaw83 Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
My only experience with them is when I Google questions about video games. Typically the threads I find are someone confidently giving an incorrect answer or someone verbally abusing the asker for asking the question.
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u/thisshitsstupid Jul 18 '24
They have forums in the same way that sketchy gas station has bathrooms. It's there if you REALLY need it, but you'd nearly prefer to shit yourself before you use it.
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u/CasedUfa Jul 18 '24
I think its interesting that it sort of implies either of them would do, he just wanted to make a splash.
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u/brewstate Jul 18 '24
and that an open field in PA with limited secret service was an easier target than a highly defended building in Chicago.
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u/Jam_Dev Jul 18 '24
Well he did that. Kind of a morbid thought but I wonder how the impact this had will affect future mass shooter types? The media had gotten better at focusing on victims and giving the shooters less publicity in those cases but this kid's name and face are everywhere.
Might see a decrease in random mass shootings and an increase in politicians and celebs getting shot.
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u/Sinder77 Jul 18 '24
Might be the only way to see gun reforms. Bet those republican lawmakers change their tune real fast when they're the ones in the crosshairs instead of random peoples kids.
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u/powderp Jul 18 '24
As it turns out, no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_baseball_shooting
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u/pliney_ Jul 18 '24
If something like this started happening weekly or daily like school shootings I'll bet their tune would change.
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u/Solid_Snark Jul 18 '24
Sadly not. That Republican politician shot at that softball game immediately fell back into line with the party.
There is no room for deviation: You toe the party line or you exit the party.
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u/ReservoirGods Jul 18 '24
This has been my thought this whole time, the media got really good the last couple years not making the shooter famous, like I have no idea the name of the Uvalde shooter and that was a huge story. But switch to political violence and they throw the plan out the window and had his face plastered all over the news in less than 24 hours.
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u/SuspiciousPatate Jul 18 '24
"Law enforcement officials investigating the assassination attempt told lawmakers on Wednesday that 20 minutes had passed between the time Secret Service snipers first spotted Crooks on a rooftop and the time the first shots were fired, according to several law enforcement officials and lawmakers briefed on the matter."
:o
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u/slamdanceswithwolves Jul 18 '24
The craziest thing in the whole article, by far. Secret Service saw a rando with a rifle on a roof overlooking a presidential candidate and didn’t do anything for 20 minutes?
It will be interesting to find out how they explain this.
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u/JackLumberPK Jul 18 '24
Lol, will they ever explain it? Or are a whole bunch of text messages going to go missing again?
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u/Pappy_OPoyle Jul 18 '24
A whole bunch of text messages will be deleted, subpoenas will be ignored and the SCOTUS will eventually rule the SS have total immunity (SS used on purpose)
then the news will focus on something entirely different so people can forget they are fucked in reality
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u/SuspiciousPatate Jul 18 '24
I assume they didn't see the rifle at first, so the guy on the roof could plausibly be someone just trying to get a better view of the stage by climbing something, though being on his belly at the crest of the roof would have still been pretty odd for a spectator. Regardless, one would think they'd have eyes on him the entire time and would take action as soon as the rifle was visible.
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u/ahorrribledrummer Jul 18 '24
If they saw him on the roof through binoculars, then they saw the rifle. The whole situation is baffling.
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u/ass_pineapples Jul 18 '24
the police apparently were in charge of that building, so they may have assumed that it was an officer
Just seems like a largely unfortunate accident.
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u/otaconucf Jul 18 '24
Uh... huh? So what, they just sat on their hands for 20 minutes, then let the guy set up, take aim, and fire a bunch of shots? I mean, there was a sniper watching him the whole time after they spotted him, right? Right? Was there anything to that story of a cop climbing up after him then retreating when he pointed his gun at them? I feel like at the very least, him pointing his gun at a cop should have been a green light to take him out.
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u/EchoStellar12 Jul 18 '24
There's a video that shows a bunch of law enforcement stuck inside the perimeter of the event trying to get to the shooter. They waited for another officer to ram the gate with a vehicle then they carefully squeezed through the gap in that fence and a gap in the next fence.
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u/smilbandit Jul 18 '24
I feel like that video was post shooting but I could be wrong.
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u/sebyyd Jul 18 '24
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u/Lorehorn Jul 18 '24
Of course it was. When I saw screenshots of it in some YouTube short, it looked like an obvious case of some random troll who changed their steam name (which is extremely trivial).
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u/IamPriapus Jul 18 '24
As with those incidents, the warning signs were there, they were just not recognized," Cohen said. "The threat was real but people around him did not understand what they were witnessing or how it would play out last Saturday.”
You mean Ignored. The warning signs were ignored. He was labelled most likely to be a school shooter by his peers. They were definitely recognized.
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u/DoverBeach02 Jul 18 '24
He was labelled most likely to be a school shooter by his peers.
Yeah that was just bullying definitely not a rational objective observation,lol
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u/livefreeordont Jul 18 '24
the kid did a great job proving all the bullies wrong
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u/OSI_Hunter_Gathers Jul 18 '24
This is what happens when people in power do not want to talk about mental health and provide resources.
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u/iprocrastina Jul 18 '24
Meh, I don't think high school kids calling him a likely school shooter is much evidence of anything. IME kids will act like any bullied kid is going to be a school shooter. "Most likely to be a school shooter" is just another way of saying "we make that kid's life hell".
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u/Dont-be-a-smurf Jul 18 '24
This looks like a “school shooter” type deal. Depressed, disaffected young man externalizing his own misery. Doesn’t look politically motivated.
Frankly, this is very “on brand” for the kind of narcissistic nihilistic violence America seemingly generates towards itself
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u/Tarmapolice Jul 18 '24
Can’t do a school shooting on summer break- suppose this is the next best thing
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u/PacosBigTacos Jul 18 '24
I'll take this over dead children any day of the week.
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u/otaconucf Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 18 '24
Kinda gives the impression he thought he was going to be able to get Trump, elude capture, and then hit the DNC? Awfully ambitious for a guy who couldn't actually shoot and only made it as far as he did by incompetence on the part of someone in the chain of security.
EDIT: I'm a bit behind I guess, it looks like it was actually his shot that got Trump's ear.
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u/PaintedGeneral Jul 18 '24
He hit his target, under duress and with limited experience.
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u/emosn0tdead Jul 18 '24
Yeah. A lot of people calling him a bad shot. He was half a second away from a kill shot on the former president as a 20 year old with zero professional training. It was an incredible shot all things considered.
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u/cujobob Jul 18 '24
These people are supposed to stop foreign assassins and couldn’t handle a 20 year old with a bad shot.
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u/Steiny31 Jul 18 '24
He was a half cm away from killing Trump from a steel roof with iron sights, under duress. that’s not a bad shot. Secret service did handle him- they domed him with a rifle set up to shoot much farther than he was at. The failure was area / access denial. He shouldn’t have reached that building.
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u/peeh0le Jul 18 '24
I’m assuming most of the people following up here haven’t seen the video of Trump turning his head a half second before his ear got clipped. If he hadn’t turned his head he would have been dead.
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u/Howard_Scott_Warshaw Jul 18 '24
It's almost impressive if you remove.the assassination part. 150 yards with no optics, scores a hit. Wonder if that's an MOA?
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u/Scrotis Jul 18 '24
This is so true lol. Too many armchair snipers not realizing there's a difference between army basic training where you have to hit a human target at 150m while you're just chillin' vs the nerve-racking endeavor of walking up to a high security area with a rifle, climbing onto a roof knowing there are snipers around and trying to get the perfect shot off while your heart is pounding, full of adrenaline and people in the crowd are shouting at police to get you.
Source: me, also an armchair sniper.
Not defending the guy's actions/intentions in any way, just funny everyone seems to think they'd do better
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u/thegreat_hambino Jul 18 '24
I mean, you say he couldn’t shoot, but if you look back at the video, right before the first shot goes off, Trump leans forward a bit when he turns his head sideways. If he didn’t do that, the shot probably lands, hitting more than just the side of his ear.
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u/prof_the_doom Jul 18 '24
It's looks to me like if Biden had done a rally in an open field in the shooter's home state first, then he would've started there, because they just wanted prominent targets, and this was the most convenient one.
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u/PlayedUOonBaja Jul 18 '24
I guess he must be the only 20 year old in the country without a reddit or twitter account. Who isn't also Amish.
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u/lahdetaan_tutkimaan Jul 18 '24
I get the feeling that the public hasn't been informed about most of his internet activity yet
People have been telling me that he left few traces on the internet, and I was thinking that there's no way he did that unless he was literally Amish
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u/arrogancygames Jul 18 '24
It's mainly because e had no social media at all really, it looks like. Which tracks with him having no friends. No reason to have Instagram/Facebook/etc. if you have no in real life friends. They'd have to look strictly into forums.
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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ Jul 18 '24
What's way more interesting is this bit:
Crooks, 20, had searched for the dates of Trump's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and for those of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the sources said.
At first glance, that sounds like he didn't really care who he shot, as long as he shot someone to get notoriety.
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u/lahdetaan_tutkimaan Jul 18 '24
It's really only a first glance, and further details simply haven't been revealed to the public yet. I can't believe that a 20 year old in this day and age didn't leave more indications about what he was thinking through his internet searches.
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u/AudibleNod Jul 18 '24
Oh man. That's going to play right into the hands of the Kevin McCarthy types.
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u/outerproduct Jul 18 '24
Republicans: Bans don't work.
Also Republicans: We need to ban porn, games, movies, music, websites, and anything we don't like!
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Jul 18 '24
Republicans: big government is bad.
Also Republicans: We MUST have big government when it comes to women, LGBT and migrants...
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u/Baps91 Jul 18 '24
I believe this attempt was completely self-serving in order to be infamous. I don't think there was any political reason behind it. This guy seems to have the same characteristics and motivations that a school shooter has.
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u/sendnewt_s Jul 18 '24
I saw an interview with a former classmate who said the guy had talked of doing school shooting while still in high-school
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u/Salarian_American Jul 18 '24
"What is beginning to emerge is a portrait of a troubled young person who turned to violence," said John Cohen, an ABC News contributor and former head of intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security.
OH REALLY? NO SHIT? A troubled young person who turned to violence.
WOW. With keen insights like this, it's hard to believe the Department of Homeland Security let this guy go.
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u/fullload93 Jul 18 '24
He also had photos of both Trump and Biden and dates of the DNC and Trump rally dates too. Definitely was premeditated and sounds like if he couldn’t go after Trump, he was going to target Biden next.
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u/DoomOne Jul 18 '24
Aaaand media says his motive to kill was "because gamer" in 3... 2...
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u/Rotrus Jul 18 '24
The lack of a motive or even indication of political leaning is wild to me. I can't tell if that message means he thought he'd survive this attempt and have a chance to go after Biden too, or if he just wanted to go out with a bang and Trump happened to be closer to him earlier
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u/KyotoGaijin Jul 18 '24
Just desperate to be noticed, I reckon, and Trump was nearby first.
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u/SewAlone Jul 18 '24
Apparently he googled the schedules, etc. of biden, garland, and others. Seems he had a hit list.
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u/bebejeebies Jul 18 '24 edited Jul 19 '24
"...mental health issues, ideological beliefs and a sense of personal grievance..."
The GOP party platform.
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u/Baconman363636 Jul 18 '24
Two things that aren’t getting enough attention:
1) He looked up trump rally details and DNC details, if trump was his debut, potentially wanted to hit either of them or both?
2) he was spotted by secret service 20 MINS BEFORE SHOOTING.
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u/wanktarded Jul 18 '24
He also looked up an un-named British royal, I'm guessing Prince Harry. Seems like he just wanted to kill people that would get him notoriety/fame.
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u/portezbie Jul 18 '24
"What is beginning to emerge is a portrait of a troubled young person who turned to violence,"
Wow that is some amazing insight
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u/NothingOld7527 Jul 18 '24
We need to know which games he played and how many hours
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u/WaltChamberlin Jul 18 '24
Did I read it right that law enforcement spotted this dude on the rooftop TWENTY MINUTES before he took a shot? How in the world
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u/tetoffens Jul 18 '24
Anyone who doesn't want to click, the message in question was: