(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Washington Regional SWAT operator Ben Shaffer, who was one of the counter snipers at the July 13 Trump shooting, made his first public remarks Monday at an informal congressional hearing held by former Navy Seals sniper Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., and decorated combat veteran Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla.
Shaffer said he was a sniper stationed about 238 yards southwest from where Donald Trump was speaking, and about 348 yards from where Thomas Crooks opened fire—grazing Trump, killing a firefighter, and hospitalizing at least two others. According to local law enforcement records, he was on top of covered bleachers just north of the Butler Farm Show Airport.
Shaffer said he was stationed 238 yards southwest from where Donald Trump was speaking, and about 348 yards from where Thomas Crooks opened fire.
That lines up with security diagrams, which place him on some covered bleachers just north of the Farm Show Airport.
Shaffer said… pic.twitter.com/MZLqy36Xnj— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) August 26, 2024
According to Shaffer, Crooks was never in his quadrant, nor was he ever in his line of sight.
Shaffer told lawmakers that based on Crooks having been deemed suspicious 30 minutes before his attack, the and the other snipers had the autonomy to use deadly force against him—debunking previous reports that the Secret Service policy dictated that counter snipers had to wait until the attacker fired first.
“Compromised authority lays out the requirements for a deadly force response. Based on the prerequisites and the boxes checked, Crooks would have met that threshold,” he said.
Shaffer also defended the local Beaver and Butler County snipers who were stationed in a building that had oversight of the rooftop used by Crooks. At least one of those snipers, Beaver County’s Greg Nicol, left his post before the shooting. It’s still not clear why the other Butler sniper failed to see Crooks when people just below his perch were shouting that Crooks was on the rooftop.
Shaffer said he’s spoken to Nicol and the Butler sniper, who still hasn’t been named.
“Based on the depth of the room, their placements, and the limited field of view that those windows provided—they were very narrow—the angle was too hard for them to see that far to the east,” Shaffer insisted.
Along with the shooting, Shaffer revealed information about the explosives were ANFO bombs—a mixture of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. He also said the explosives included remote detonating devices commonly used in the commercial fireworks market.
Shaffer said the bombs were “possibly” manufactured in Crooks’s parents’ home, where the gunman lived.
“In the construction of these materials, there is a process. There are things that need to be procured, and most likely those things would have been located through online means, which again leads to more questions,” he added.
Ammonium nitrate is a potent explosive, capable of wreaking death and destruction on an unimaginable scale. The April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing was one such example—a homemade bomb containing ammonium nitrate that had been constructed and detonated with devastating consequences.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
