And whilst I can potentially see this as a possibility,
A) For what purpose would Crooks make a move like that? Would it offer some tactical advantage? Would he have a better viewpoint of his target or threat area by being in that position? Would he be just checking his surroundings, and then crack, his stock is hit? I have not seen a photo/video to the effect that he popped up over his rifle before the first counter shot rang out. And you have to think, he had just taken 5 shots right on top of each other, would he then within a second or two pop his head up over and off of his rifle? I imagine if he were on his optic he would have stayed on the optic, or if on iron sights would have stayed relatively on those iron sights.
B) that would leave us with a situation where Trump is alive based on a random movement of his head, and the one shooting at him also survived 1 out of 2 shots by a slight movement of his head? That’s a pretty hard pill to swallow, not impossible though it seems improbable. I know you were speculating, absolutely nothing wrong with fantasy, it gives us potentialities, and another potential viewpoint on reality. But this whole scene has so many questions and what seems like no actual answers… and do we have any photo/video evidence to point towards him holding the rifle in an odd way that would make a stock shot with no personal damage more probable?
I don’t think that, I just say there might be a trajectory that give the possibility of doing so. Originally we were debating the issue about the potential shot in his knee, not the stock.
But as mentioned it’s all depending what his (and the rifle’s) exact position was when shot 9 and 10 came in. If he showed himself enough above the ridge line or got sleightly beyond it, could be shot 9 stroke the stock as indicated in the Higgins report.
I’m not sure I understand the question. Surely you know where the grandstands are. Are you asking where as in what timestamp in the RSBN video?
At 6:02pm is the last time you can get a glance at the western grandstand in the RSBN livestream, just before Trump takes the stage.
There is also a NTD livestream where they turn the camera towards the grandstands about 3 min after the first shot. Hard to make out any movement back there.
11:55-13:25
Does anyone have a link to the spa guy rooftop video and water tower video? Can’t find it on youtube or his own page any more.
thanks for the clarification, 2’ probably is more accurate 
Water tower
roof top
Thanks for sharing. The guy calling out someone laughing on the news stand was interesting.
That graphic is very interesting. It shows the angle from the southern Hercules team is just right so that a shot from them might pass enter the left side of the suspect’s face, exit his right lower side, and then come very near to his right knee.
If the suspect was laying prone, then I think a bullet would pass over and miss the knee. But the suspect turned to his right and faced west for a moment as the following photo shows. (The caption is incorrect insofar as it says he is facing north.)
The photo does not show it clearly, but in this half erect position it would be very natural to flex both legs and for the right knee to be raised up (perhaps 24 inches). And in this position it might be high enough for a bullet from the southern Hercules team to clear the roof ridge vent, pass through his head and then pass through his knee.
My main reservation about this thesis is that the lower knee wound does not necessarily look like an exit wound.
Notice also that in his half erect position the gun is swiveled around and almost points north. In this position the stock or butt end of the rifle is closest and most exposed to the southern Hercules team so that a bullet from one of them might well first hit the stock and then either penetrate the suspect or send fragments from the stock into his body or both.
Why would I need to know where those are?
I haven’t bothered with that far west side of the map other than the vendors.
Why would I?
That’s like asking me if I know any of the other 100 buildings around that area. No, no I don’t know them. If I need to know them because of a reason, then I will research them.
In the meantime, I’m not going to memorize random places around the Butler Farm Show, just because.
Do you have a better explanation of what caused the damage to the upper part of the stock? In the extended pic, I can see the piece missing and in the collapsed pic I can see the jagged edge of the broken top part of the stock.
From: Higgins Releases Preliminary Investigative Report - Congressman Clay Higgins
“The 9th shot fired on J13 was from a Butler SWAT operator from the ground about 100 yards away from the AGR building. Shot 9 hit Crooks’ rifle stock and fragged his face/neck/right shoulder area from the stock breaking up.”
From Congressman Clay Higgins Preliminary Investigative Report published on August 12, 2024
In Congressman Higgins preliminary report dated August 12, 2024 he states the following:
The 9th shot fired on J13 was from a Butler SWAT operator from the ground about 100 yards away from the AGR building. Shot 9 hit Crooks’ rifle stock and fragged his face/neck/right shoulder area from the stock breaking up. The SWAT operator who took this shot was a total badass; when he had sighted the shooter Crooks as a mostly obscured by foliage moving target on the AGR rooftop, he immediately left his assigned post and ran towards the threat, running to a clear shot position directly into the line of fire while Crooks was firing 8 rounds. On his own, this ESU SWAT operator took a very hard shot, one shot. He stopped Crooks and importantly, I believe the shot damaged the buffer tube on Crooks’ AR. I won’t be certain of this until I can examine Crooks’ rifle, but I’m 99% sure, based upon reliable eye-witness ESU tactical officers who observed Crooks’ rifle before the FBI harvested it as evidence. This means that if his AR buffer tube was damaged, Crooks’ rifle wouldn’t fire after his 8th shot.
There is a bodycam video I have seen (wish I hd been taking notes!) from a LEO moving behind the grandstands between a large boom lift and the Hercules sniper barn buildings. That bodycam captures a suited and booted SWAT operator raise his rifle, take a shot, then lower his rifle and raise his right arm. With all the video released and shared I have everything all mixed up. Apologies, perhaps someone else can help dig that footage up.
The guy is walking behind the temporary bleachers erected for the event. The grandstands are permanent infrastructure at the south-west end of the Farm Show Lake.
Here you can download the bodycam video(s)
BTPD Body Cam footage 7.13.24 – Dropbox
The trouble here is, Crooks was in his (most likely prone) shooting position when shot 9 comes in.
After that he erects up his upper body quite a bit and makes the turn around. I think he even switches to the next roof lane with this move. At one point it seems like he’s pointing his rifle against the spectators on the west side. I don’t believe he targets them, it’s just a part of his turn around move.
When you look very closely and frame by frame in the Jon Malis video, he is laying down again and the rifle is most likely pointing south in direction of the stage area. Just an instant later shot 10 comes in and takes him out.
Gary from Paramount Tactical took gps elevation data with his drone. It’s measured in meters above sea level, so the roof where Crooks was is 381.171 m and the southern barn roof where the CS was is 383.441 m (or 384 m when you take the rifle stand the sniper used into account). The distance between those two positions is 168.191 m
red line would represent the trajectory of shot 10. Maximum descending angle without hitting the ridge is less than 1°. AGR 6 roof, if it’s a 1:12 pich, would be 4.76°.
So it very well could have been a counter-sniper on the grandstands, as far as matching the distance, but the angle doesn’t seem to make lots of sense in regards to Crooks apparent head injury.
He would need to have been turned quite a bit for left side entry, right side exit.
He was sort of twisted as he sat up. Maybe he turned even more to try and escape or even to look behind him and that’s when the actual shot 10 happened??
The unblurred TMZ video would be ideal.
JeffOstroff has it somewhere
exactly!
the red circle is 400 yards around crooks’ head.
the orange line is the line of sight from crooks’ position via Trump over/through the bleachers and to the JCB hydraulic lift.
the red line is the line of fire of the SWAT officer who is associated with the 9th bullet
the green line is obstructed by a couple of trees, but is a line of fire that would create the entry wound near crooks’ left chin, exit wound near his right chin and blow away part of the stock while aiming in the direction of the rally area…
this green line is the only location that
- is not too obstructed and
- is at 400 yards from crooks’ head on the roof
- that would explain away the entry/exit/stock damage
the yellow line is unobstructed and would result in very similar damage to crooks and the rifle’s stock, but it is at 316 yards
if crooks was looking towards the witnesses near the trees (on the right of the image), it would make sense that one of the snipers on the southern/right barns behind Trump would have taken the 10th shot with the entry/exit/stock damage we see in the photos.
these snipers uses .300 Winchester magnum rounds that cause devastating damage on impact with some solid tissue like bone or a rifle’s stock, but they can penetrate soft tissue without causing much devastating harm as shown in this ballistic gel (https://youtu.be/u8gYe9f3AS8):
as the neck/throat area is mostly skin, muscle, wind pipe, oesophagus, vocal chords, veins, arteries and nerves, the first really hard surface a bullet entering crooks’ left facial side, would encounter could be the hard polymer of the rifle’s stock…
and while this part gets blown away, it could easily take away crooks’ puff of hair that was reported by some eye witnesses:
The congressman’s report said that shot 9 hit the rifle and that the swat guy on the ground was sure of his hit.
I don’t know why you would argue against it. Not yet.
It does make sense.
A shot 10 exiting behind his right ear and also hitting the stock does not make sense to me.
if we assume that crooks fired the 5 rounds from the roof along the orange line in the picture below, the shot recordings learn us the following:
- there is a bit less than 1 second between the registration of the 8th shot and the 9th shot, and
- the 9th shot was fired by a SWAT officer along the red line in the picture below
I do not see how this 9th shot would have damaged the stock without taking away the front part of crooks’ right chin, as the heading difference between the red and the orange lines in the picture above is about 12 degrees…
if the SWAT officer hit the stock, bullet 9 would have gone in between crooks’ chin and hit the stock
the following images come from Ar15 Style Rifle Images - Free Download on Freepik :
in the picture above, you can clearly see that a shot entering the bottom part of this man’s left chin would exit his right chin and encounter the rifle’s stock…
if crooks looked to his right (direction towards the witnesses under the trees, away from the AGR parking), a sniper on the southern barns behind Trump could have taken a shot with a WinMag 300.
this shot would not damage his face too much as his cheek/chin/neck/throat it is mostly softer tissue, and the first really hard matter the bullet encounters is the polymer stock…
so, if crooks turned to his right immediately after the 8th shot, bullet 9 of the SWAT officer could have taken the hit with this entry/exit/stock damage, but this does not seem to be very likely, given the fact that there is the picture with the semper fi t-shirt where crooks seems to be sitting up right, rifle to his cheek, pointing/aiming the rifle in the direction of the semper fi t-shirt man…
bottom line: it is unlikely that bullet 9 hit that stock while crooks looked to his right.
next option: crooks was still aiming in the direction of the rally area and got shot by the SWAT officer with bullet 9.
if he held the rifle somehow loosely, the 9th bullet could have damaged the stock if the bullet came from the left hand side of crooks, but that would not have been that SWAT officer:
if it was that SWAT officer, and bullet 9 damaged the stock, then the bullet should have travelled between crooks’ chin and the stock:
I really cannot see a way how that SWAT officer can have hit that stock with bullet 9 without blowing away crooks’ right chin or his right shoulder…
and it makes much more sense if bullet 10 took him out while he was looking to his right holding the rifle near his right cheek…
so, the question is very simple: how would you explain
- the damage to the stock,
- given the relatively intact face of crooks
- bullet 9 when shot from the SWAT officer
- bullet 10 when shot from whoever you think fired that round
I think you will quickly come to the conclusion that it cannot have happened as is described in the Congressman’s report…