US: FBI Reveals Gunman Considered Trump Rally a "Target of Opportunity"

Washington DC, August 29,:
The shooter who tried to assassinate Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania last month saw the gathering as a "target of opportunity," according to Al-Jazeera, according to a Wednesday FBI statement. At an outdoor rally in Butler, Trump was injured in the ear by a bullet fired by criminals from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. According to information cited by the New York Post, Thomas Matthew Cooks was positioned on top of a manufacturing factory more than 130 yards distant from the stage at the Butler Farm Show grounds.

In July, at a rally in Pennsylvania, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks decided to attack the Republican presidential nominee after mounting a "sustained, detailed effort" to launch an assault on a large gathering.

Thomas Crooks, according to FBI officials, registered for the Trump event after conducting more than 60 searches for facts regarding Trump and his then-rival, Democratic President Joe Biden.

"We saw... a sustained, detailed effort to plan an attack on some events, meaning he looked at any number of events or targets," stated Kevin Rojek, the chief FBI official in western Pennsylvania, during a telephone briefing with media on Wednesday, as reported by Al-Jazeera.

Once the announcement of the Trump rally was made, Rojek continued, the criminals became "hyper-focused" on the event "and looked at it as a target of opportunity."

It should be noted that following the assassination attempt, snipers from the US Secret Service shot Crooks, and a rifle similar to an AR-15 was subsequently found. Forty miles south of Trump's Butler rally site lies the town of Bethel Park. According to The Hill, Secret Service personnel charged the stage after gunfire rang out while Donald Trump was speaking at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.