That’s Dave Stewart? Looks like him.
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I will say he’s out on the end of that stock with head up. For me, that would be a very uncomfortable way to shoot. It does expose more of the stock to being hit than I expected, but it would still be a miracle if the stock took a round and he was never hit somewhere.
yes, this is also something like 3-4 ft from the top of the roof, so only the top of his head would peep out above the ridge line, and the rifle would still be completely invisible from, e.g., the SWAT officer that fired the 9th bullet…
assume that he got hit in this position after having crawled closer to the ridge line, the damage to the stock would have to be caused by:
- a bullet coming from the side of the AGR parking, e.g., a rifle man from the woods, would explain the entry wound in his left chin/cheek/jaw, exit wound in the right chin/cheek/jaw and the damaged stock
- a bullet coming from the side of the witnesses near the trees near the Semper Fi man, i.e., around the location from where this picture was taken… this would explain the damaged stock, but I would think the damage to crooks’ face would be much more pronounced than what happened and was seen in the non-blurred photos…
- a bullet coming from in front of him that missed his head, damaged the stock, and this would have caused some serious damage to his right shoulder too…
I agree that is a very awkward, uncomfortable way to shoot. It would not be “correct,” and places the head far too far back to use the optics correction. The correct method would be Nose On Charging Handle (NOCH) on the AR15.
If you are able, can you redo this but place the rifle charging handle to Crooks nose, moving the buttstock father back to his shoulder. This would be a text-book shooting position (NOCH). I realize that the video we have of him on the roof he is in an incorrect position but NOCH (Nose on Charging Handle) would possibly explain an exit wound and rifle strike damage on round 10, if he were facing west shouldering the rifle toward the crowd, and the bullet entered his mouth or neck and exited his right neck, striking the rifle buttstock.
These stocks are very rugged plastic, my educated guess that it was not broken when he went on his mission and was indeed struck. A strike from a rifle around against this hard (yet brittle brittle) plastic would probably shatter it into small pieces that might be very hard to see on that black-speckled rooftop.
I searched the internet for “shattered” broken Magpul buttstock and found no images so they are very tough. Not prone to break. The impact of a rifle bullet however would probably shatter that section into small shards. The largest size possible would be about 3" of that missing section. Probably much smaller than that.
I would also suggest that firing this jagged broken stock would be very uncomfortable especially with his incorrect position with his cheek on the end of the buttstock versus the correct method of being much more forward as taught for the AR15 (Nose on Charging Handle). He’s incorrectly very far rearward.
Crooks appears to be in position or nearly in position. He’s shouldered the rifle and looking down the optic. This suggests he’s done moving and in position taking aim. He’s laying on a slightly upward sloped roof with a small ridge cap to look over. I’d guess he rested the barrel on it, which might account for 3 casings on the other side (a different debate). Otherwise it would be difficult conceptually to lay at an incline, firing over a ridge cap, at an object slightly lower. At minimum his rifle barrel, rifle optic, and at least his mouth to the top of his head, and his shoulders, would be exposed in order to fire effectively at Trump or the crowd. There’s no getting around some level of exposure assuming he is looking thru the optic and not just blind firing.
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sure. what about this?
the picture above is with the extended stock as shown in the evidence picture of the fast buriers of information.
in the picture below, I have shortened the stock to match his shoulder:
inspiration for the nose distance is based on this image:
@bigtim and @rough_country_gypsy you are right that this position would be very compatible with the final shooting position where the muzzle is aligned with or would rest on the ridge of the roof…
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If he shortened the length of the stock, where is the damage to the buffer tube? In the FBI picture with the stock collapsed, there is no damage shown. If a bullet struck the buffer tube it would show in that picture.
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@sgt-raven yes, you are right!
he cannot have collapsed the stock!
this implies that he must have used the non-collapsed stock position, which would have looked like this:
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My mistake, I was hoping you’d do the photo from his left side.
no worries. the image can be flipped easily:
I used this image as a starting point as we know the exact ratio between the size of his head and the rifle based on the “original” version:
and the rifle I have overlayed on this image has been scaled to the exact size of the contours of the handle, scope and stock…
would it be a fair claim that we can conclude from this exercise that he was less proficient with his rifle than we have heretofore assumed?
remember that it is all about the wording: +40 visits to the range does not imply that he went shooting +40 times…
he could just as well have signed the register and gone for an ice cream or something similar as many times as he wanted…
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It depends. Some of us were trained to shoot NTCH. I’ve seen a lot of pics/videos of other people who position their head further back on the stock. But I have always been a bit of a ‘stock crawler’ and prefer a rifle with a shorter ‘length of pull’ than others. It is more important to position your eye in the same place every time you shoulder the rifle.
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Smart to just flip the image.
Ultimately I guess it doesn’t matter where his nose is in relation to the charging handle. His neck might be in alignment with the rear of the stock in the fashion he holds it whilst aiming, the stock is up against his shoulder and from some angles a bullet pass-thru his neck might take off the top of the buttstock.
The reason I asked is that one of many plausible theories is that in the moments before his death, Crooks turned west and was pointing the rifle in the general western direction. In the discussion of when/how the stock was damaged, your flipped image would be consistent with Crooks facing west, pointing the rifle west, with the rifle correctly shouldered with his nose on the charging handle, and a shot coming from the south, thru his mouth/neck exiting his right neck and passing thru the buttstock.
Nah, I don’t think it’s determinative other than suggesting he was never “trained” by someone with solid grasp and/or military training on how to hold it. He’s a tall guy and this might just be more comfortable, he may have had bad training on how to hold the rifle and never been corrected. One could still presumably be capable but it’s just not the correct way to hold it. But many people, like great guitarists or baseball players, held their guitars or bats “wrong” too…
Edited: Something I had not considered but might be a factor is that he clearly has poor eyesight, wears glasses. We don’t know the nature of his vision but perhaps the red dot and/or iron sights are best seen from HIS vision by being farther back on the stock. So this might reflect his training and the best position for his face to best see the optics.
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Then the shot should come from elevated position.
Gary Melton from Paramount Tactical showed the picture at 23:53 of Dangerous Liberty Ep92 - New Revelations UNCENSORED Review and Analysis of Bodycam Footage
his little mouse pointer is just above what he has identified as the impact point of bullet 9 coming from the SWAT officer on the green:
Gary assumes that bullet 9 entered the buffer tube there and shattered the top part of the back of the stock…
his left pointing finger points at where Gary assumes bullet 9 went into the buffer tube:
also note once more that there is a reason why the fast buriers of information showed the evidence photo of this rifle pointing from left to right for the simple reason that they would otherwise have shown the bullet impact point into that buffer tube…
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Realistically, how do you only get evidence photos from a single angle? If they are truly evidence photos, are they not meant to be photographed and catalogued in as many angles as necessary to dissect the evidence?
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It’s if the face of criminal person should be photografed only from behind. 
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Sure thing Glowie Gary show us how it happened. He has plenty ARs around his business. He could shoot a buffer tube with the spring & buffer inside it. Do it with a camera pointing at it. Do it from 10-25 yds.
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Very good products indeed. And yet that one broke…
a) intentionally, by Crooks himself for some reason.
b) on shot 9, and the FBI is lying
c) on shot 10 from south Hercules, by the bullet
d) on shot 10, by the bullet
e) other
I say C
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If you apply even a small amount of imagination, Crooks probably moved from this exact position. He might have raised the stock to his shoulder making a shot straight thru possibly the cause of the stock damage.
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Explain to me the mouth, back of head, neck, and EYE. Even if there is only the entrance mouth exit neck(or vice versa)there is also an entrance or exit wound to the eye. The way it looks is as if he were against the rooftop when shot from behind that exited through the eye. But if it is an entrance wound, then it has a trajectory of coming from below and entering going an upward path. Does not make sense to me. I was studying gunshot entrance/exits and the rarities are what we have here.
this position is not the position in which the first intervention team found crooks on the roof…
the way I see the situation now is as follows:
- the 9th bullet, likely fired by the SWAT officer halfway the green between the rally area and AGR building 6, dazzled him, or maybe even injured him.
if Gary Melton is right about his assumption that the 9th bullet entered crooks’ rifle at the buffer tube and then shattered the rear end of the rifle, it is well possible that crooks got injured from that blast.
I do not know whether he is right or not. I assume the 9th bullet disturbed crooks, and he may have gotten somehow injured, but he was intact enough to sit upright and direct his rifle towards the crowd near the trees… - after crooks had recovered from the incoming bullet, he sat up right, faced the crowd near the trees, cheeked the rifle aiming towards them, and then, someone shot from the rally area towards him with an entry wound around his left cheek/jaw/chin, exit wound around his right cheek/jaw/chin and damaging the stock:
the above images show the position of the stock (held to the right part of his face, close to his shoulder and a bit further from his shoulder) should he have looked right…
the following pictures are reasonably to scale, as we know that crooks filled somehow 3/4th of the width of a roof lane:
the rifle and crooks’ head are accurately scaled 1:1 based on the picture taken by Mike DiFrischia I posted earlier with similar photos. the AGR building 6 photo is based on the drone footage made by @rough_country_gypsy.
I do not know the distance between the drone and the building when this picture was taken, but it is clear that it is not from a large distance, and crooks’ head and rifle get very small very quickly when looked at from a distance…
and the above schemes are very compatible with what RealDjStew documented:
as there is no autopsy report, it is not known what injuries crooks suffered from…
whether his eye was an entry wound or not, or whether the 9th or 10th bullet entered his mouth are pure speculation…
note that the bloody images cannot really be used to deduce whether the right side of his face was injured due to the bloodiness of the images, but I would rule out bullets coming from below, as the position he is in on these photos is not the position how/where het got shot…
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