Expert view: This one thing about Trump shooting is very suspicious

The US Secret Service needs to explain something about its response to Saturday’s attempted assassination
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The US Secret Service needs to explain something about its response to Saturday’s attempted assassination

On Saturday, 20-year-old Pennsylvanian Thomas Crooks fired three shots from a rifle and was almost immediately hit by return fire from US Secret Service snipers. The country’s former President Donald Trump suffered a minor wound to his right ear, but literally looked death in the face. Apparently, Trump was saved by turning his head to the right, in the direction of the would-be assassin. He had already made this move when Crooks pulled the trigger and the bullet flew towards him at an initial velocity of more than 1,100 meters per second. According to a ballistic calculator, the bullet took 0.14 of a second to reach Trump’s ear. There was no way the shooter could have calculated the movement of his intended victim. Trump was only millimeters away from being fatally wounded. Even if he had turned at a slightly different angle and the bullet had travelled 10-20 mm to the right, the former US president would have been seriously wounded and out of the running for power in the US for a long time, if not forever.

The next two shots were automatic and missed, indicating poor shooting skills and an inability to control himself under stress.

The presidential candidate himself heard the shots half a second later, apparently at the same time as he felt the pain of the wound. The speed of a bullet is three times the speed of sound. By this time, a projectile had already hit the next victim. We can assume that the shooter was able to hit several targets with one shot. But that’s not because of any ability on Crooks’ part, it’s the result of the large crowd at the rally.

What was striking, however, was the lightning response of the secret service snipers. They opened fire with at least two rifles in just over three seconds. This is an excellent result. And it would be even in a shooting competition where the target and distances are known, and the command ‘fire’ is given.

So, it’s clear that Special Forces snipers had Crooks in their crosshairs by the time the shots were fired. 

So why didn’t they open fire sooner? And why did they let the shooter get so close and not respond to eyewitness reports of a strange man with a gun?