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Trump rally gunman stopped firing after local officer shot at him

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Trump rally gunman stopped firing after local officer shot at him


Thomas Matthew Crooks paused shooting at former president Donald Trump after a local law enforcement officer assigned to a SWAT team returned fire, and Crooks did not shoot again before he was killed by a Secret Service countersniper, according to two officials familiar with the investigation into the assassination attempt.

The shot from the local officer caused the would-be assassin to temporarily recoil from his perch on a rooftop, according to the two officials and a Washington Post analysis of video evidence. Crooks’s retreat coincided with a 10-second pause in shooting, according to audio experts who examined the gunshots, a critical period that ended when the Secret Service countersniper shot and killed him.

It has been reported that a local officer fired at Crooks, but the analysis suggests that the officer may have played a more important role than previously known in responding to the attack at a July 13 rally in Pennsylvania.

One of the people who spoke to The Post, a local law enforcement officer close to the investigation, did so on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. The other, Richard Goldinger, the district attorney for Butler County, confirmed that a member of the county’s Emergency Services Unit (ESU), similar to a SWAT team, fired a shot at Crooks that prompted a reaction from the gunman.

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“I don’t know if the officer actually hit Crooks and don’t believe he fired the neutralizing shot,” Goldinger, who oversees the emergency services unit, said in a text message. But Goldinger said he believed the officer’s shot caused Crooks to stop firing his weapon, buying the Secret Service snipers time to kill the gunman.

A third person familiar with the investigation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss details that have not been made public, confirmed the Butler officer shot at Crooks before the Secret Service countersniper fired. The person said investigators have not found evidence that the local officer’s round struck the gunman, but witnesses said Crooks appeared to move after that shot was fired.

Ten shots were fired in the span of roughly 16 seconds, according to video recordings taken at the rally. Four audio experts consulted by The Post said the first eight shots, fired in bursts of three and five, have similar acoustic signatures and probably were fired by Crooks, who was armed with an AR-15-style rifle.

Eight spent cartridges were recovered on the roof Crooks fired from, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray told lawmakers last week. Trump’s ear was grazed by a bullet or bullet fragment, according to the FBI, and three spectators were wounded, one fatally.

Less than a second after the last of those eight shots, a ninth gunshot is heard. Then comes the 10-second pause.

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A livestream captures ten shots during Trump’s speech. The ninth was by a local law enforcement officer. (Video: The Washington Post)

The local law enforcement official close to the investigation did not know whether the local officer’s shot hit Crooks. But shortly after that shot, Crooks altered his positioning, the official said. Crooks stopped shooting at the rally site and slumped down behind the crest of the sloped roof where he was perched, the official said.

After the local police officer’s shot, “there was definitely some sort of reaction,” the official said. “Crooks slumped over, and he didn’t fire another round.”

The official credited the local officer with interrupting Crooks’s attack. “Anything that disrupts an active shooter can keep the situation from being significantly more catastrophic.”

The official’s account is supported by video taken about 100 feet west of the building from which Crooks fired. The footage was recorded by Jon Malis, a 52-year-old Pennsylvania resident who was watching the rally from that location, just outside the Secret Service security perimeter.

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Crooks had roused the suspicion of local police as he milled around outside the rally with a golf range finder. They were looking for him when he crawled onto the roof of a warehouse complex and began shooting at 6:11 p.m. Malis’s video, first published by Fox News, records the sound of the eight shots from Crooks and then the sound of a ninth shot. After that ninth shot, the video captures Crooks as he turns, making his face visible to the crowd on the west side of the building, away from the rally, The Post analysis shows. He then appears to reposition himself.

Video shows Crooks did not fire again after local law enforcement shot at him. (Video: Jon Malis)

The local officer who shot at Crooks was assigned to a barn behind and to the north of the rally stage, along with a counterassault and quick-reaction force team from Butler County, the local law enforcement official said.

The officer, who was not a sniper, had left the barn and was outside on the ground nearby when Crooks began firing from the rooftop about 110 yards away, the official said. The local officer saw the muzzle flashes from Crooks’s rifle, the official said, and fired his rifle at Crooks.

A rally worker told The Post they witnessed the local officer shoot at Crooks from the same location.

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The worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because their employer had not authorized them to speak publicly, said they were standing behind the bleachers to the north of the stage when Crooks took his first shots. The worker said attendees scrambled while the local officer took aim.

“Everyone else was moving, and he wasn’t,” the worker said. “I remember thinking, ‘He’s not freaking out; he’s not yelling.’ He shot his gun, and I remember thinking, ‘We need to take cover.’”

A spokesman for the Secret Service said the FBI was best suited to answer The Post’s questions about the local police officer’s shot toward Crooks.

FBI officials confirmed that a Butler County officer fired at the gunman, and that the officer’s weapon has been taken to the FBI’s laboratory in Quantico, Va., for further analysis. Firearms experts at Quantico are also examining the gunman’s weapon, an AR-15-style rifle with a collapsible stock, and the weapon used by the Secret Service countersniper, FBI officials said.

FBI officials have said that a Secret Service countersniper fired the round that killed Crooks.

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Malis’s video captures the 10th shot and Crooks’s subsequent collapse. “He’s down,” an onlooker shouted, according to Malis’s recording, which then zooms in to show Crooks’s body splayed on the roof.

The local law enforcement official told The Post that the Butler County officer was preparing to take a second shot at Crooks when the Secret Service agent shot him. The official confirmed there were a total of 10 shots: eight by Crooks, one by the Butler County officer and the last by the Secret Service.

Imogen Piper and Jon Swaine contributed to this report.



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Washington Watch: CCAMPIS grant competition announced – Community College Daily

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Washington Watch: CCAMPIS grant competition announced – Community College Daily


The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), “on behalf of the Department of Education (ED),” on Monday released a Notice Inviting Grant Applications for the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program. Applications are due by May 29.

Last November, ED announced that it had entered into an interagency agreement with HHS to administer the CCAMPIS program. This is the first CCAMPIS competition conducted under this arrangement.

Approximately $73.5 million will go to institutions of higher education that awarded at least $250,000 in Pell grants to enrolled students in FY 2025. HHS will award about 148 grants, ranging from $150,000 to $1 million.

The terms of the grant competition are not significantly different than prior competitions. As before, there are two absolute grant priorities that every application must address – leveraging non-federal resources and utilizing a sliding-fee scale for low-income parents.

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This year’s competition includes only one invitational priority that reflects the Trump administration’s general educational policy. The new priority, entitled “Expanding Education Choice in Early Learning Settings,” encourages applications that “expand access to education choice … including by empowering parents in choosing the early learning setting that best meets their family’s needs.” Flexible childcare programs that include drop-in care and care during nontraditional hours are also encouraged.

One other notable difference from prior competitions is an expanded “Terms and Conditions” section that not only requires compliance with applicable civil rights laws, but also refers to Trump administration Executive Orders and guidance on racial discrimination that clarify “the application of federal antidiscrimination laws to programs or initiatives that may involve discriminatory practices, including those labeled as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) programs.” This includes any “discriminatory equity ideology [as defined in Executive Order 14190] in violation of a federal antidiscrimination law.”

The exact scope of these terms is unclear because courts have not found many of the practices described in these Executive Orders and guidance documents to be violations of federal law.



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A look at the roots (and routes) of immigration to Washington

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A look at the roots (and routes) of immigration to Washington


The Newsfeed

This week, the team brings you stories about how communities including Filipino immigrants, Sephardic Jews and Somalis arrived in the Pacific Northwest

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Each week on The Newsfeed, host Paris Jackson and a team of veteran journalists dive deep into one topic and provide impactful reporting, interviews and community insights from sources you can trust. Each day this week, this post will be updated with a new story from the team.

Group hopes to boost recognition for Seattle’s Filipinotown 



By Venice Buhain

The group Filipinotown Seattle hopes to make sure that the legacy of Filipino Americans in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District isn’t forgotten. 

One of the group’s current projects is pushing for a Filipinotown placemarking sign in the CID. 

“Filipino Americans have had a presence here for over 100 years in Seattle,” said Filipinotown Seattle Executive Director Devin Israel Cabanilla.  

He said that the signage is important to remind people that “the International District is not just Chinatown. Japantown. Filipinotown is here as well.” 

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The group held a poll on what signage might look like and where it might be located. It would be similar to the Chinatown sign on South Jackson Street and Fifth Avenue South, or the Wing Luke Museum  

In the early 20th century, the area now known as the CID was a hub full of businesses, entertainment, social groups and housing that served Seattle’s growing immigrant population from Asia and elsewhere. The communities all intermingled throughout the CID. 

“This area was a central place for Asian Pacific immigrants simply because of segregation,” Cabanilla said. 

Because the Philippines was a U.S. territory from 1898 to 1946, Filipino immigrants were unaffected by laws in the 1920s that restricted immigration from Japan or China. Many Filipinos came to study at the University of Washington or to work in burgeoning industries, like lumber, farming, canneries and factories.  

While the physical Filipino presence in terms of buildings and storefronts in the CID dwindled in the later 20th century with redevelopment, Seattle Filipinos and Filipino Americans continued to make impacts locally, regionally and nationally.  

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“It may not have been in terms of storefronts, but our presence has always existed in terms of politics, culture as well,” Cabanilla said. 

The Seattle Department of Transportation said it is aware that the group is working on its signage request, but the Department of Neighborhoods has not yet received a formal request. They are also working to develop a clearer process for this and other similar neighborhood signage proposals. 

Filipinotown Seattle said it hopes that the sign helps remind Seattle of the CID’s unique designation as a neighborhood shaped by many immigrants and migrants to Seattle. 

“Is it Chinatown? Is it Japantown? Is it Little Saigon? It’s all those things. And I think re cultivating that this is a multicultural district, Filipinotown is helping establish: Yes, it’s more than one thing,” Cabanilla said. 

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Venice Buhain

Venice Buhain is a multimedia journalist at Cascade PBS. She previously was the Cascade PBS’s associate news editor and education reporter. Venice has also worked for KING 5, The Seattle Globalist and TVW News.



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The Church of Jesus Christ has announced its 384th temple

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The Church of Jesus Christ has announced its 384th temple


The state of Washington is getting a seventh temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Marysville Washington Temple was announced Sunday night during a devotional in the Marysville Washington Stake by Elder Hugo E. Martinez, a General Authority Seventy in the church’s United States West Area Presidency.

“We are pleased to announce the construction of a temple in Marysville, Washington,” the First Presidency said in a statement. “The specific location and timing of the construction will be announced later. This is a reason for all of us to rejoice and express gratitude for such a significant blessing — one that will allow more frequent access to the ordinances, covenants and power that can only be found in the house of the Lord.”

The other temples in Washington are the Columbia River, Moses Lake, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and Vancouver temples.

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The church has 214 temples in operation. Plans for another 170 temples have been announced; many of those temples are in various stages of planning and construction.

Sunday’s temple announcement follows the new practice of the church’s First Presidency, which determines where temples will be built — and when and how they will be announced.

The First Presidency directed a General Authority Seventy to announce the first temple in Maine at a fireside there in December.

In January, church President Dallin H. Oaks said the Maine announcement set the pattern for future temple announcements.

“The best place to announce a temple is in that temple district,” he told the Deseret News.

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The First Presidency will continue to decide where future temples will be built. It then will “assign someone else to make the announcement in the place where the temple will be built,” he said.

This pattern came to him as a strong impression after he assumed leadership of the church in October, following the death of his friend, President Russell M. Nelson.

This came as a strong impression to him shortly after he assumed the leadership of the church, President Oaks said.

The church remains in the midst of an aggressive temple-building era. President Nelson announced 200 new temples from 2018 to 2025. All but one were announced at general conference.

Five dozen temples are now under construction.

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President Oaks now has overseen the announcement of two temples, neither at a general conference.

At the October conference he said that “with the large number of temples now in the very earliest phases of planning and construction, it is appropriate that we slow down the announcement of new temples.”

Ten new temples are scheduled to be dedicated in the next six months.

  • May 3: Davao Philippines Temple.
  • May 3: Lindon Utah Temple.
  • May 31: Bacolod Philippines Temple.
  • June 7: Yorba Linda California Temple.
  • June 7: Willamette Valley Oregon Temple.
  • Aug. 16: Belo Horizonte Brazil Temple.
  • Aug. 16: Cleveland Ohio Temple.
  • Aug. 30: Phnom Penh Cambodia Temple.
  • Oct. 11: Miraflores Guatemala City Guatemala Temple.
  • Oct. 18: Managua Nicaragua Temple.

Two-thirds of the 170 temples still to be built are outside the United States.

Temples are distinct from the meetinghouses where Latter-day Saints worship Jesus Christ each Sunday. Temples are closed on Sundays, but they open during the week as sanctuaries where church members go to find peace, make covenants with God and perform proxy ordinances for deceased relatives.



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