Former President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt yesterday, when he was shot in the ear during a rally in Pennsylvania.
Almost immediately, far-right online sleuths attempted to identify the perpetrator, falsely accusing an Italian YouTuber of being behind it.
Hours later, the FBI named Thomas Matthew Crooks as the alleged Trump shooter. Crooks, who was killed by police, was reportedly a 20-year-old who lived about an hour away from the rally.
But—for myriad reasons—those same digital sleuths don’t trust the FBI’s claim of who was behind it and think they’ve sussed out the real person.
“Why are some of you saying that the FBI named the shooter like that means anything at all?” wrote one poster on X, identifying another person as the Trump shooter. “You trust the people that investigated the JFK Assassination, Watergate, 9/11 Attacks, Boston Marathon Bombing, Orlando Nightclub Shooting, Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest Festival Shooting, Russia Interference in 2016 Election, and January 6th?”
But on X, far-right posters fell for a debunked video from a troll who cosplayed after the assassination attempt for clout, posting a video claiming to be Crooks.
They’ve since deleted it and are now apologizing for doing so.
But users have taken stills from that video, as well as other unconfirmed images, and are comparing body parts, saying the ears of the alleged gunman don’t match up to the images of the deceased. They say pictures of the deceased gunman show he had gauge holes that have since closed up.
Others, though, have argued that the closed gauge holes are blood.
“We know they are going to WIPE this persons ENTIRE history on the internet, so we may never know. Side note, [He] had viable gauges in his ears in his mug, now they are closed up,” one wrote.
They’ve also claimed the person has ties to antifa, which was the same claim made in the original false identification of the Italian YouTuber.
“That it is a guy affiliated with ANTIFA that was actually arrested back in 2016 for being involved in an Anti-Trump protest in Pittsburgh … He was sentenced to a 3-12 month jail sentence in Allegheny County Jail,” wrote another account, identifying the same person.
While they’re completely wrong about the other identity, some have taken it further and found the person’s address. On Google Maps Street View, the house in question shows both “Black Lives Matter” and “Trans Lives Matter” posters in the windows.
“Shooter’s window (allegedly or whatever),” read one post with nearly 24,000 views.
“He random fired his cringe politics onto innocent bystanders- thinking he would hit Trump,” wrote one response.
The image exploded on 4chan, which has been questioning the current official narrative of the shooting since it happened. Users have been using it to challenge the reporting that while Crooks donated $15 to a progressive organization, he was listed as a registered Republican.
“Lines like ‘protect trans kids’ is dog whistle for violence,” one said, claiming that progressives are inspiring a mass shooter panic, a false narrative that’s nonetheless been adopted by the right.
In addition to the attempt to suss out a real identity, trolls have also repacked an infamous old meme to joke the shooter was transgender.
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