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Sanctus ,
@Sanctus@lemmy.world avatar

in group text:

sends pic of shooter

“Hey, this guy looks kinda sus, huh?”

Ste41th ,

replys

Chief just now

“He’s just laying on the building maybe he’s just using the range finder to get a better view, idk though we’ll see what happens lol 😌”

YungOnions ,

Kudos for the layout formatting 👍

Ste41th ,

Thanks :D

ArbitraryValue , (edited )

This is such a clown show…

One sniper inside spotted the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, outside and looking up at the roof, observing the building and disappearing, according to the officer who spoke to CBS News. The sniper observed Crooks as he returned to the building, sat down and looked at his phone. At that point, one of the local snipers took a picture of Crooks.

Next, the local sniper observed Crooks looking through a rangefinder, an instrument routinely used by marksmen to determine the distance of a target, and he immediately radioed to the command post, according to the local law enforcement officer. The local sniper also attempted to send the photo of the gunman up the chain of command.

Officials then lost track of Crooks, who disappeared, but soon returned for a third time with a backpack. The local sniper team called for backup — alerting the command post that the gunman had a backpack and was walking toward the back of the building.

Two other municipal police officers who heard the call for back-up attempted to climb onto the roof. Butler County Sheriff Michael Sloupe told CBS Pittsburgh station KDKA that an armed municipal officer with Butler Township was hoisted by another officer onto the roof of the building where the gunman had taken a position. Crooks focused his rifle towards the officer who ultimately let go, falling off the roof. Moments later, the shooter began firing into the crowd.

In a reasonable world, Crooks wouldn’t have even been allowed to go near the building. In a less reasonable world, Crooks would have been confronted by armed men as soon as they saw him look through a rangefinder. In a world that was the least bit reasonable, Crooks would have been shot the moment he took a gun out of his bag. But here we are.

finley ,

this is… ugh, so bad

shottymcb , (edited )

In a reasonable world everyone in the vicinity would’ve left him alone. Police snipers would’ve given some tips and offered to help monitor wind conditions. Treason carries a death sentence.

In an even more reasonable world we wouldn’t have to worry about a fascist being elected, but… ¯_(ツ)_/¯

todd_bonzalez ,
@todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee avatar

Y’all keep saying “Reasonable world”, but then Trump exists in that world, so I have no fucking clue what y’all are on about.

makyo ,

In a reasonable world Crooks wouldn’t have had that weapon to begin with

stoly ,

You’re forgetting that this stuff is very often just security theater and many officers are playing dress up. When shit goes down, nobody is ever prepared even when they have the correct training.

blackbirdbiryani ,

Yea, but this was secret service. They’re supposed to be the best of the best. I guess not.

stoly ,

That’s the biggest problem–there is no best of the best. It’s all just hubris and who you are connected to. What separates someone in the secret service from a regular police officer is who they know and probably what sort of military background they have.

PepperoniNipple ,

The only time where I am so goddamn glad the world is unreasonable

Zaktor ,

Apart from all the actual missed confrontations, it seems like you should just pay someone to be up on any building that’s a security risk. They don’t have to be super vigilant or highly trained, just the equivalent of a traffic cop working a construction site. Their presence alone would remove it as a threat.

ArbitraryValue ,

You’d think so, but apparently a slightly sloped roof is more that the Secret Service can handle.

Secret Service Chief: Trump Shooter’s Sloped Roof Left Unmanned Due to Safety Concerns

JesusSon ,
@JesusSon@lemmy.world avatar

I hope all these sources get on the same page soon because I have some old head friends who read all this stuff and believe he was a Chinese national working for the Iranians, set up next to snipers in a building cleared by locals. They say he was then confronted after he climbed a ladder but before he bear-crawled 25 feet to aim, only to be interrupted by local cops forcing him to fire quickly but was killed by snipers who had been watching him use a range finder for hours.

Please get it together, all these 50-year-old conspiracy theorists are going to start having heart attacks lol.

ThePantser ,
@ThePantser@lemmy.world avatar

all these 50-year-old conspiracy theorists are going to start having heart attacks lol.

And that is a problem why?

JesusSon ,
@JesusSon@lemmy.world avatar

Mainly because heart attacks suck and tend to kill but also because I’m not a heartless cunt wishing death on people just because they are stupid.

partial_accumen ,

Also because the heart attacks of god fearing republicans was the goal all along! The Democrats, in concert with George Soros, devised this plan in 2020. By fixing the vote, it radicalized the Trump loving shooter setting up the situation for the shooter to be the cause of the heart attacks. Its an elaborate multi-pronged plan years in the making that is only now coming to fruition…and these liburls think good republicans are stupid enough to fall for it. Pizzagate!11!1!!! /s

stoly ,

Gen X isn’t the problem here. It’s boomers. It’s always been boomers who were the problem.

JesusSon ,
@JesusSon@lemmy.world avatar

Oh now there old friend, I wasn’t making a generalization as to a whole ass generation. I am sure I could commiserate with you as to the fuckery boomers have shit down our backs since they traded in free love for free hate but I try real hard not to drag ass on a bitch after 5pm if you get my meaning.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

I’ll do it for you. They all have Reaganite Brain Worms, throw them in the trash.

JesusSon ,
@JesusSon@lemmy.world avatar

Generalized hate, how progressive of you.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

It’s based on science 🔭

ColeSloth ,

There’s a lot more of gen x than boomers. Maybe y’all should have been voting.

twistypencil ,

Hey now, don’t go there, because you are right

octopus_ink ,

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/1d3003d9-4680-4044-aea4-80caa39a8c0a.png

stoly ,

It’s exactly the opposite–more boomers than Gen X. Also I’m Millenial so relax a bit.

octopus_ink ,

https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/f69234fb-9d91-4d1b-92ef-1ec67249b871.png

www.statista.com/…/us-population-by-generation/

ColeSloth ,

Aight. Like 5 million off still.

Regardless, more than 5 million still alive are in nursing homes and too ill to manage to vote. 11% of the 65 and over bunch have dementia. The majority of those people won’t vote.

octopus_ink ,

And your point is (somehow) still that no one from Gen-X votes… or something?

match ,
@match@pawb.social avatar

you have to forgive them for forgetting about Gen X, it is sort of a theme

stoly ,

there were far more Boomers than ever existed in Gen X, likewise for Millenials

crystalmerchant ,

Gen who?

ThunderclapSasquatch ,

In my experience GenX is almost as bad, they have a huge fucking chip on their shoulders instead of believing they are God’s chosen generation

stoly ,

Depends. Older Gen X is basically like young Boomers. Younger Gen X are basically like older Millenials.

UltraGiGaGigantic ,

It’s the 1% vs the working class, not generation vs generation

LifeInMultipleChoice ,

Then Trump will only have 1% of the vote then, I feel better.

ImADifferentBird ,
@ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Unfortunately, far too many of the 99% see themselves as temporarily embarrassed 1%.

Delusional ,

All that lead they consumed growing up. Distorted their brains and making them clinically insane.

phoneymouse ,

I’d suggest reading the article. It gives the play by play of how the events occurred. I think you’re reading headlines and then constructing your own picture of what happened.

JesusSon ,
@JesusSon@lemmy.world avatar

Bless your heart, I read it right before I posted. Thank you kindly for the advice though.

At some point, everything I wrote was in an article just like this one, only citing “sources in (insert official entity here)” and always starting with “sources say.” Well, except for the Iranian one, that one was a separate incident but a buddy of mine mentioned it right before I read the post so I added it.

BigMacHole ,

If only there was ONE MORE GUN OFFICER SNIPER he would NOT have been able to get a shot off!

NeptuneOrbit ,

It takes seventy trigger happy good guys to kill… Somebody.

vga ,

If only everyone in the crowd carried sniper rifles.

sparkle ,

Trump wasn’t carrying. There’s your problem. He didn’t have self-defense and white boy goated with the sauce almost caught him lacking, but instead of busting it down sexual style he let us down failure style

Voyajer ,
@Voyajer@lemmy.world avatar

Kind of surprising they didn’t blast him as soon as he pulled out the rangefinder.

bolexforsoup ,

White

bazus1 ,

Sounds about white.

Gilles_D ,

Succinct

FireTower ,
@FireTower@lemmy.world avatar

pulls out range finder from ~130 yards away. Proceeds to miss 7/8 shots completely on a 6ft3" 240lb man from the prone.

frankgrimeszz ,

deleted_by_author

    •
    FireTower ,
    @FireTower@lemmy.world avatar

    Yes

    scops ,

    He was a 20 year old kid who knew he was seconds away from death, who had just scared off a cop who had come up the ladder after him. I’m not sympathetic for him, but I could understand him being jittery and missing. Paper and clays don’t shoot back. It’s not true practice.

    ikidd ,
    @ikidd@lemmy.world avatar

    Yah, jesus, I get shaky just lining up a nice sized deer still, and I’ve been hunting for years. And I don’t have anyone breathing down my neck and 30 seconds to shoot.

    The fact he just barely missed with a shitty AR-15 at over a hundred yards is a minor miracle.

    grue ,

    Apparently, he tried to join his school’s rifle club but was rejected for having terrible marksmanship.

    Evotech ,

    That’s so stupid, isn’t that kinda what school clubs are for

    scoobford ,

    I’m not commenting on whether that’s true or not, but it isn’t how it works in the south. If you want to play high school soccer or whatever, you have to quality by doing well in middle school. Some places, middle school is competitive enough to warrant tryouts.

    Extracurriculars are also rapidly getting more expensive. Too many parents want to pretend their kids are in the NFL or NBA or whatever.

    UltraGiGaGigantic ,

    If you break Range rules, you get 86ed

    grue ,

    ¯⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ I’m just relaying what I read in the news. I agree that it’s dumb for a club (as opposed to a competitive rifle “team”) to be like that, but it’s allegedly what happened nonetheless.

    CTDummy ,

    Didn’t the first shot only miss because Trump turned his head? After the first one you’ve got to deal with recoil/nerves.

    baldingpudenda ,

    No fucking way is trump 240.

    FireTower ,
    @FireTower@lemmy.world avatar

    Snopes said 244 I rounded down.

    scutiger ,

    Don’t know if it’s true, but word is he’s been on Ozempic recently. He has lost a noticeable amount of weight, but 6’3" and 240, he definitely ain’t.

    Pandantic ,
    @Pandantic@midwest.social avatar

    I’ve been almost 240 and I’m short, and I was as wide as Trump.

    OutsizedWalrus ,

    A 100 yard shot with iron sights is much harder than most people understand.

    FireTower , (edited )
    @FireTower@lemmy.world avatar

    I didn’t hear anything suggesting he used irons, that’d be a very odd choice. Most modern ARs don’t come with irons or an optic and you can get red dots much better than just irons for under $200.

    And irons would decidedly be harder but 100 yards still is very achievable by a novice who follows fundamentals.

    OutsizedWalrus ,

    Sorry, in this case I’m referring to no magnification. Your right that’s there’s a bunch of things that could be sights without it being irons.

    The photos and media speculation seem to suggest that there wasn’t a scope.

    ——

    I still don’t think this is as easy as people make it out to be. Yes, a novice could put a tight grouping downrange - but could they do that on their first shot, on a hot metal roof, with adrenaline pumping.

    I know it typically takes me a few rounds at the range to get dialed in.

    monsterpiece42 ,

    I think it’s easier than you think, especially from prone and especially if you have any previous experience, which I assume the shooter did.

    Here’s a page out of a US military training manual to get an idea of how “wide” the front sight looks on a human size target. And remember, Trump is considerably wider than these silhouettes.

    https://reddthat.com/pictrs/image/0d09b280-5c63-4c89-a04e-b1a03372feff.jpeg

    OutsizedWalrus ,

    I’ve shot rifles. It’s not hard to do at a range after you’ve dialed yourself in.

    It’s a lot harder to pull off on the first shot under pressure on a hot roof.

    monsterpiece42 ,

    Yeah I guess that’s a fair point.

    And at the end of the day, it was clearly difficult for him, or he wouldn’t have missed so many times.

    FarFarAway ,

    At this point, I’m almost convinced they purposefully gave him the chance to take his shot.

    thatirishguyyy ,
    @thatirishguyyy@lemmy.today avatar

    Almost like… it was staged

    FarFarAway ,

    Maybe staged, but from my understanding trump wasn’t super nice to them. Maybe they saw the guy and just…shrugged.

    Snowclone ,

    I don’t know, they got MUCH more expensive hotel accommodations on his watch.

    FarFarAway ,

    latimes.com/…/trump-strangle-secret-service-capit…

    Modern_medicine_isnt ,

    Honestly though, you don’t stage shooting at someone unless you are willing to kill them. So trump certainly wasn’t in on it. He cares too much about himself.

    june , (edited )
    @june@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    The “staged” conspiracy theory (not saying it is right or wrong) relies on the assumption that he was not actually shot (either teleprompter glass cut him or he “bladed” or used a blood pack to get the bloody face effect); that the shooter was making it look like an attempt but only ever intended to shoot into the crowd. Again, not endorsing this idea, but it is one of those things that is hard to put past Trump. I personally am anticipating this to either die or get much bigger once he removes the bandage and we see his ear in 4k. The images from the event showed so little damage it’s hard to tell.

    LengAwaits ,

    Best we have right now, far as I can find:

    Expand for bloody ear photohttps://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/4a85ea6b-c598-417e-b751-f41c97288159.jpeg

    Pandantic ,
    @Pandantic@midwest.social avatar

    Yeah, it honestly looks like it’s not bad. If it was a bullet, he’s quite lucky! IMO, more likely it was shrapnel if the prompter was hit (I have no evidence for that tho).

    BleatingZombie ,

    Is this a pun because it happened on a stage? https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/47184707-94ad-439a-a4cf-a9d6bc698777.jpeg

    poorlytunedAstring ,

    This is the fundamental problem with protecting a candidate whose entire base is really big on guns, big on having guns on them, big on using every inch of their already permissive rights, and no matter what, the candidate’s rally is a highly likely place for them to flex their pieces, even if they can only wave them around in the parking lot.

    You can’t just do the obvious thing and put rounds in everyone you see with a rifle. White girls are going to be out in the parking lot doing influencer dances with AR-15s. The muzzle might wave in Trump’s direction while she boot scoots. We don’t know what kind of orders that sniper had, but probably something along the lines of “look all these fuckers are going to be strapped if they can be strapped, stay chilly on the trigger and think twice, take no shots without orders.”

    By the time anybody acted like a clear threat, the bullets were already flying. So what if he had a rangefinder? That doesn’t count as a “pull trigger now” level threat, not with this crowd. What an absolute bastard of a thing to provide overwatch for, you know?

    Leate_Wonceslace ,
    @Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    This is pretty much my thinking. The sniper likely thought the kid was setting up a picture from the rooftop or something, and didn’t want to shoot someone so young when they may very well be doing something harmless.

    the_toast_is_gone ,

    You would think, though, that it would be a “get some guys with guns onto that roof before he comes back” sign. 20 minutes is plenty of time to get at least some guys with pistols/their own AR-15s over there to secure the area. Also, simply having the right to own and carry weapons doesn’t give you the right to point them at people intentionally, much less set up a sniper’s nest on a divisive public figure. If a random guy in the crowd started pointing his pistol at Trump, then I’m fairly certain that would give Secret Service the right to at least tackle the guy or tase him, not to mention all the other people who would rush to control him.

    UnderpantsWeevil ,
    @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

    This is the fundamental problem with protecting a candidate whose entire base is really big on guns, big on having guns on them, big on using every inch of their already permissive rights, and no matter what, the candidate’s rally is a highly likely place for them to flex their pieces, even if they can only wave them around in the parking lot.

    If police snipers started opening up on random people at a Trump rally who were simply parading around their most tacti-cool looking hardware, imagine how much safer the convention could be.

    You can’t just do the obvious thing and put rounds in everyone you see with a rifle.

    They absolutely can and they absolutely should. Treat the RNC like its Oakland during the OJ Riots or New Orleans during a hurricane. Just start blasting anyone who looks vaguely threatening and don’t stop until you feel safe again.

    Anyone who argues otherwise simply isn’t serious when they say “Blue Lives Matter”. I mean, ffs, can you even imagine what the world would have lost if Thomas Matthew Crooks had adjusted his aim and hit one of our brave servicemen?

    Every single American police officer needs to treat these thugs and their guns with absolute seriousness. Lives are on the line. And not just the lives of school children. Important ones.

    MeThisGuy ,

    are you in some way implying school children aren’t important?

    UnderpantsWeevil ,
    @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

    They’re not Blue Lives, ergo…

    Draedron ,

    lol all comments preferring a fascist be shot than giving the chance to implement fascism get removed. Its just like reddit now.

    Ibuthyr ,

    Pray tell, how do you plan on removing fascism? Because believe me, everyone here would love that.

    rhandyrhoads ,

    Get removed is referring to the commenters. Maybe a comma would have saved that sentence, but you’d have to be really good with commas.

    Ibuthyr ,

    Oh shit, you’re right! I had some trouble reading that comment. It makes a whole lot more sense now!

    And yeah, I too had a comment removed by some overzealous reddit-tier garbage mod.

    BruceTwarzen ,

    Why did they try to kill hitler instead of just removing him smh

    TokenBoomer ,

    Can I assume the picture is in the article? No? Then it didn’t happen. /s

    TheReturnOfPEB ,

    Being US president is like one of the most dangerous professions in the world. And that is the example of the level of expertise the US has in protecting one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.

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