A photo taken by longtime Gateway Pundit contributor Kristinn Taylor at President Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13 appears to show the drone flown by 20-year-old would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks.
The photo was taken a little over two hours before the would-be assassin fired eight shots at President Trump before he was finally neutralized. (Enlarged images of the photo included further below in this article.)
One Trump supporter, Corey Comperatore, was murdered while two Trump supporters were seriously wounded during the attack.
President Trump was shot in the head by a bullet that miraculously only hit his ear as he turned to his right on stage to look at a jumbotron with a graph on immigration. Crooks was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper 26 seconds (nearly half a minute!) after he opened fire on former President Donald Trump.
The photo of the apparent drone was taken by Kristinn Taylor at 3:54 p.m. EDT according to the time stamp on the image.
Kristinn took the photo from the pathway approaching the Secret Service magnetometer checkpoint, facing back toward the line of Trump supporters as they snaked their way from the parking area and merchandise row.
FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress on Wednesday that Crooks flew a drone for about eleven minutes over the Butler Farm Show rally site about 200 yards or so away from the stage starting at 3:50 p.m. (ABC News excerpt):
The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, flew a drone about 200 yards from the rally venue, and had it up in the air for about 11 minutes, just hours before the shooting, FBI Director Christopher Wray told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
The drone — which was recovered in the shooter’s car — was flown at about 3:50 p.m., he said.
“Let me be clear about the area — not over the stage, and that part of the area itself, but, I would say, about 200 yards, give or take, away,” he said. “And that we think, but we do not know. So again, this is one of these things that’s qualified because of our ongoing review.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) then posted on Thursday that whistleblowers informed him the Secret Service turned down offers of drones for the rally:
NEW – Whistleblower tells me local law enforcement partners & suppliers offered drones to Secret Service BEFORE the rally – but Secret Service declined pic.twitter.com/UM0jfrMc9z
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 25, 2024
The photo of the apparent drone shows the flying object further away than 200 yards from the stage and on the opposite side from where Crooks later set up on the AGR building roof to shoot Trump.
This (cropped) site map sent in advance to press covering the Butler rally shows the three buildings behind the stage and the AGR building in the upper right corner. The white circle with the number 2 is the approximate location of where the photo was taken while looking south. The apparent drone is likely over the grassy area between the building complexes on either side. The grassy area was used for parking for the rally.
The original photo, taken at 3:54 p.m., shows a small black object in the blue sky overhead.
Zoomed-in versions of the photo show a black object in the sky overhead.
This is the only photo Kristinn took that day that shows the apparent drone. Other photos of the sky he took at the rally do not show any objects, birds or drones, overhead.
Here is a close-up of the object that was flying over the Trump Butler rally on Saturday July 13th at 3:54 p.m., just a few hundred yards from the stage.
Here is another view of the zoomed-in object in the sky at 3:54 PM.
A photo taken just before, also at 3:54 p.m., facing the opposite direction. The white tents of the Secret Service screening area are in the distance:
Kristinn was credentialed by the Trump campaign for the press pen near the stage but traffic was backed up for two hours to get to the rally site Saturday afternoon. The press check-in was closed when he arrived so he was waved into the general rally area where he roamed and took photos of the attendees. Kristinn was not on the left side of the rally area when the shooting took place. Rather, he was on the opposite side from where the shooter was when Trump took the stage.
Brief snippet of crowd reacting to President Trump taking the stage at the Butler, PA rally on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/v4FNthjETp
— Kristinn Taylor (@KristinnFR) July 17, 2024
Photo of President Trump on the jumbotron taken at 6:10 p.m.
Kristinn’s video taken after most of the gunfire ended. What turned out to be the Secret Service sniper firing the kill shot on Crooks can be heard in the first few seconds. That shot took place 26 seconds after Crooks first opened fire on Trump.
Raw video right after shots fired at President Trump at Butler, PA rally. I was taking photos and switched to video. I heard several shots but saw hydraulics on speaker column on right fail, dropping the column down while gushing fluid. Crowd reaction to Trump fist raise in video pic.twitter.com/hwFP47frg7
— Kristinn Taylor (@KristinnFR) July 14, 2024
Photos taken of law enforcement on the roof of the AGR building where Crook’s body was found. The photos were taken at 6:32 p.m., about twenty minutes after the shooting.
Photo of the aftermath of the shooting shows a man who spoke at the rally, Rico Elmore, with blood on his shirt from aiding one of the victims.
Merchandise row became a press filing row after the rally site was declared a crime scene.
Never surrender.
