Tag Archives: text messages

Show us the receipts: Text messages show law enforcement knew of Thomas Crooks 90 minutes before attempted assassination of Trump

FOX NEWS-ALL_TXT_MSG_TRUMP_ATTEMPTED_ASSASSINATION_TEXTS_072924_02

Important Takeaways:

  • Text messages revealed that law enforcement responsible for monitoring former President Trump’s Pennsylvania rally spotted his would-be assassin and flagged him to colleagues as suspicious at least 90 minutes before he opened fire.
  • The messages, obtained by Fox News Digital from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who obtained them from Beaver County Emergency Services Unit, showed that officers flagged 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks after he was spotted using a range finder – but did not approach him.
  • The first screenshot is a group chat of Beaver ESU officers, while the second is from one Beaver County sniper departing his shift at around 4:30 – approximately an hour-and-a-half before Trump took the stage. The New York Times first reported the text screenshots.
  • In a group chat, around 4:36 p.m., when one of the officers texted that his shift was ending, he warned that a man, later identified as Crooks, had parked nearby their vehicle.
    • “Someone followed our lead and snuck in and parked by our cars just so you know,” the text from an officer read.
  • A follow-up message said that Crooks was about 50 yards from the rally’s exit, sitting at a picnic table.
  • Two other counter-snipers responded with a thumbs up emoji and responded, writing, “Roger that.”
  • Approximately 45 minutes later, at 5:10 p.m., officers flagged that Crooks was on the move and had positioned himself near the American Glass International (AGR) building. Crooks would later perch himself on top of the AGR building to target the former president.
  • While Crooks waited, an officer snapped a picture of the 20-year-old suspect.
    • “Kid learning around building we are in,” an officer wrote in a text message, along with an image of Crooks. “AGR I believe it is. I did see him with a range finder looking towards stage. FYI. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out.”
    • “I lost sight of him,” the officer added.
    • A follow-up message said: “Call it in to command and have a uniform check it out.”
  • By 6:11 p.m., approximately 1 hour after the last text message was sent, the “kid” would be killed by a counter-sniper after he opened fired on the rally goers.
  • Trump was grazed by a bullet on his ear, while three rallygoers were also shot, including Corey Comperatore, 50, who was killed protecting his family from danger.
  • David Dutch and James Copenhaver were injured after being shot at the rally. Copenhaver was recently released from the hospital on Friday.

Read the original article by clicking here.

Former Boston College student charged over boyfriend’s suicide pleads not guilty

BOSTON (Reuters) – A former Boston College student pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges of involuntary manslaughter stemming from what prosecutors said was her role in encouraging her boyfriend to commit suicide.

A lawyer for Inyoung You, 21, entered the plea on her behalf during a hearing in Suffolk County Superior Court after she returned from South Korea to face charges brought last month over the May 20 suicide of her college boyfriend, who leaped to his death from a parking garage hours before his graduation.

Prosecutors point to thousands of text messages that You exchanged with Alexander Urtula as evidence showing she was physically, verbally and psychologically abusive to the 22-year-old and told him to “go kill himself” and to “go die.”

“These text messages demonstrate the power dynamic of the relationship,” Assistant District Attorney Caitlin Grasso said in court.

Prosecutors say an investigation found that You used attempts and threats of self-harm to herself to control Urtula and isolate him from friends and family. They say she was also aware of his suicidal thoughts when she encouraged him to kill himself.

Urtula spent the night before his death with You in her dorm room, Grasso said.

After Urtula the next day texted her and his brother saying he was going to take his own life, You used her cellphone to track his location to a parking garage in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston and was on its roof when he jumped, Grasso said.

Earlier this week, You through a public relations firm released to the Boston Globe text messages she exchanged with Urtula the day of his death suggesting she tried to stop him and sought to have his brother intervene.

The allegations bore similarities to the high-profile Massachusetts case of Michelle Carter, who was convicted in 2017 of involuntary manslaughter and accused of goading her teenage boyfriend into committing suicide with text messages and phone calls.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld her conviction in February. Her lawyers call the case an “unprecedented” instance of someone being convicted involuntary manslaughter based on words alone and have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn it.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Texas church shooter sent threatening messages to mother-in-law before rampage

Neighbours who live next to the site of a shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs are pictured, Texas, U.S. November 6, 2017.

By Jon Herskovitz and Lisa Maria Garcia

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (Reuters) – A man court-martialed by the U.S. Air Force on charges of assaulting his wife and child sent threatening messages to his mother-in-law who sometimes attended the rural Texas church where he fatally shot 26 people, officials said on Monday.

Gunman Devin Patrick Kelley injured another 20 people when he opened fire in the white-steepled First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on Sunday. The attack ranks among the five deadliest mass shootings carried out by a single gunman in U.S. history.

As he left the church, Kelley, 26 was confronted by an area resident who shot and wounded him, authorities said. Kelley fled and the resident waved down a passing motorist and they chased the suspect at high speeds.

“This good Samaritan, our Texas hero, flagged down a young man from Seguin, Texas, and they jumped in their vehicle and pursued the suspect,” said Freeman Martin, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Kelley called his father during the chase to say he had been shot and might not survive, officials said. He later crashed his vehicle, shot himself and died, they added. It was not clear if he died of the self-inflicted wound or those sustained in the gunfight, officials said.

Kelley was involved in a domestic dispute with the family of Danielle Shields, a woman he married in 2014, and the situation had flared up, according to officials and official records.

“There was a domestic situation going on within the family and the in-laws,” Martin told reporters outside the church on Monday. “The mother-in-law attended the church … she had received threatening text messages from him.”

Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt said the family members were not in the church during Kelley’s attack.

“I heard that (the in-laws) attended church from time to time,” Tackitt said. “Not on a regular basis.”

Kelley at times had attended services at the church, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas told reporters at the scene.

“My understanding is that this depraved madman had worshipped at this church before,” Cruz said.

The attack came about a month after a gunman killed 58 people in Las Vegas in the deadliest shooting by a lone assailant in modern U.S. history.

The dead ranged in age from 18 months to 77 years.

Ten of the wounded in Texas remained in critical condition on Monday morning, officials said.

 

‘VIOLENT TENDENCIES’

Wearing a black bullet-proof vest and skull mask, Kelley used a Ruger AR-556 semi-automatic rifle in the attack, authorities said. They recovered two other weapons, both handguns, from his vehicle.

In rural Texas and in other states, gun ownership is a part of life and Republican leaders for years have balked at gun control, arguing that responsible gun owners can help deter crime.

Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott told CBS News there was evidence that Kelley had mental health problems and had been denied a state gun permit.

“It’s clear this is a person who had violent tendencies, who had some challenges,” Abbott said.

A sporting goods chain said Kelley passed background checks when he bought a firearm in 2016 and a second gun in 2017.

Abbott and other Republican politicians said the mass shooting did not influence their support of gun ownership by U.S. citizens – the right to bear arms protected under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“This isn’t a guns situation. I mean we could go into it but it’s a little bit soon,” U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters while on a trip to Asia. “Fortunately somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction, otherwise … it would have been much worse.”

Democrats renewed their call to restrict gun ownership.

“How many more people must die at churches or concerts or schools before we stop letting the @NRA control this country’s gun policies,” Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Twitter.

Vice President Mike Pence said on Twitter that he will travel to Sutherland Springs on Wednesday to meet with victims’ families and law enforcement.

Kelley was court-martialed in 2012 on charges of assaulting his wife and child, and given a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for 12 months and a reduction in rank, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said. He was discharged in 2014.

The attack stunned Sutherland Springs, a community of about 400 people with just one blinking yellow traffic light. One family, the Holcombes, lost eight people from three generations in the attack, including Bryan Holcombe, an assistant pastor who was leading the service, a relative said.

John Stiles, a 76-year-old retired U.S. Navy veteran, said he heard the shots from his home about 150 yards (137 m) away: “My wife and I were looking for a peaceful and quiet place when we moved here but now that hasn’t worked out.”

 

(Additional reporting by Jane Ross in Sutherland Springs, Texas; Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; and Peter Szekely in New York; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Lisa Shumaker)