‘I know I hit him.’
The Butler County SWAT operator who shot at would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks and effectively ended his assault on the July 13 Donald Trump rally in Western Pennsylvania has been identified as Sgt. Aaron M. Zaliponi of the Adams Township Police Department.
The revelation was made in Washington, D.C., by U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) during the first hearing of the House Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump.
According to testimony at the hearing, Zaliponi quickly acquired Crooks in the sight of his M4 rifle while Crooks was firing his AR-15 at Trump and the rally crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Zaliponi fired what became known as shot No. 9, which knocked Crooks down and prevented him from resuming his attack before a U.S. Secret Service counter-sniper fired a fatal shot to the head.
‘As I’m getting my target acquired, I’m getting my red dot up, I can see the gas emit from his barrel, his muzzle.’
“My investigation thus far leads me to conclude that Zaliponi’s ‘shot 9’ impacted Crooks in some way, effectively stopping him from ever squeezing the trigger again,” Higgins told Blaze News after the hearing. “Stock of his AR or into his rear shoulder, I’m not sure, but impact.
“Zaliponi never took his red dot off of Crooks, and as Crooks rose up from shot 9, Zaliponi was a half-second away from pressing another round into Crooks when the USSS southern counter-sniper team ended the threat,” Higgins said.
The hearing served as a bit of redemption for state and local Pennsylvania police, who were initially blamed by the Secret Service for Trump being shot in the ear during a speech before tens of thousands of rally-goers at the Butler Farm Show Inc. fairgrounds.
The task force chairman, U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), lauded state and local police for doing “everything you were asked to do that day.”