Claim that image shows Trump rally shooter began as hoax | Fact check

Joedy McCreary, USA TODAY
·3 min read
47

The claim: Image shows Trump rally shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks

A July 14 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) includes an image of a wounded former President Donald Trump surrounded by Secret Service agents, next to a profile view of a long-haired man wearing glasses.

“The FBI has identified The man who shot former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania political rally as Thomas Matthew Crooks,” the post’s caption states.

The post received more than 700 likes in two days.

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Fact check roundup: False claims about Trump rally shooting spread online

Our rating: False

That's not Thomas Matthew Crooks in the image. The social media user who first posted it to X, formerly Twitter, later admitted it was shared as a joke.

Image originated as hoax, ‘but it’s serious now’

The shooting at Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, killed one person, critically injured two more and left the former president with a wounded ear. The FBI identified the gunman as Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, and the Secret Service said its agents killed him at the scene.

But Crooks isn’t the person shown in the image posted to Instagram. The social media user who shared it said in a subsequent post that it was a hoax.

Fact check: Man pretended he was Trump rally shooter in a viral video 

It was first posted to X after the shooting by a user who also shared a video of a man claiming to be Crooks and stating authorities “got the wrong guy” – a false claim debunked by USA TODAY. The user deleted the post with the image and later posted that he is “not Thomas I’m not the shooter I’m not anyone, making that absolutely clear.” In another post, the user said he “made a joke but it’s serious now.”

The person in the Instagram image bears a passing resemblance to the yearbook photo of Crooks from 2020 that was published by legitimate news outlets.

The X user changed the account's name and shared a post stating that “the absolute last thing i expected was for the would be assassin of god lord trump to be my bizarro clone.” Other images shared by the user prior to the shooting show a person who matches the man shown in the hoax post.

The attempted assassination of Trump has been the subject of significant misinformation on social media. USA TODAY has previously debunked false claims that Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas denied requests for additional security at the rally, that Secret Service agents were photographed smiling after the shooting and that a man named “Mark Violets” was identified as the gunman and arrested.

USA TODAY reached out to the Instagram user who shared the post but did not immediately receive a response. The X user who shared the original image could not be reached.

Lead Stories also debunked a version of the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Image does not show rally gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks | Fact check

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