How the ATF identified the Trump rally shooter in 30 minutes
CNN
Within 30 minutes of the shooting at Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, federal law enforcement used a byzantine paper records system to track down decade-old gun sales records to help identify the 20-year-old would-be assassin.
Within 30 minutes of the shooting at Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, federal law enforcement used a byzantine paper records system to track down decade-old gun sales records to help identify the 20-year-old would-be assassin. Law enforcement agents initially ran into roadblocks as they attempted to name the shooter, later identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks. Crooks was not carrying any ID when he was shot by Secret Service agents. But what he did have was an AR-style rifle used to carry out the deadly shooting. ATF analysts at a facility in West Virginia search through millions of documents by hand every day to try to identify the provenance of guns used in crimes. Typically, the bureau takes around eight days to track a weapon, though for urgent traces that average falls to 24 hours. It’s a process that has been used for several other high-profile and time sensitive investigations. After the Highland Park, Illinois, mass shooter fled in July 2022, police used the ATF tracing system on a firearm he left at the scene to learn his identity. And police used a firearm that bystanders wrestled away from the man who shot and killed 11 people in Monterey Park, California, to identify him. The firearms tracing system is “invaluable,” Brian Gallagher, a former supervisor at the ATF Philadelphia field division, told CNN. “In situations where we have high profile shootings and where firearms are recovered, the local ATF offices can request an emergency trace” for the weapons found at a crime scene, Gallagher said.
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