Local Officer Shot Trump Rally Shooter First, Knocking Him Down, Investigation Finds

‘He stopped Crooks and importantly, I believe the shot damaged the buffer tube on Crooks’s AR,’ Rep. Clay Higgins said.

Law enforcement agents at the site of the attempted assassination against former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pa., on July 13, 2024. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The first shot to strike the man who fired at former President Donald Trump came from a local law enforcement officer, according to a preliminary report from an investigation by a U.S. congressman.

Thomas Crooks fired eight shots from the rooftop of a building near where Trump was speaking in Butler County, Pennsylvania, on July 13.