Donald Trump‘s would-be assassin Thomas Matthews Crook was at the former president’s rally three hours before shooting him and sparked the suspicions of the Secret Service because he was carrying a rangefinder used by hunters to take long shots.
The 20-year-old gunman told his boss that he needed the day off from work on Saturday and gave his colleagues a final chilling message: That he would be back on Sunday.
At around 3pm on Saturday, Crooks was spotted at the security screening area and tried to pass through the magnetometers with the rangefinder that’s used by shooters to measure distance, CNN reported.
The device which looks like a small pair of binoculars would not have prevented him getting into the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, but did put him on law enforcement’s radar.
Secret service officers watched him but lost track of Crooks when he left the secure area.
He tis then believed to have collected his rifle from his car, which also contained a bulletproof vest and two explosive devices.
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