Reportedly, Thomas Matthew Crooks practiced shooting at a gun range in western Pennsylvania in the weeks leading up to last Saturday’s attempted assassination of former President Trump.
Bill Jenkins had gone to the Keystone Shooting Center in Cranberry on June 22, just weeks before the incident on July 13, to hone his shooting abilities. He sat next to Crooks. Jenkins said that he was seated next to evil.
The avid shooter from Pennsylvania has come clean about his training sessions with the 20-year-old would-be assassin of former president Trump, who opened fire at a campaign rally weeks before the incident.
On June 22, at the Keystone Shooting Center in Cranberry, Pennsylvania, gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks and 63-year-old Bill Jenkins, a veteran of the United States Air Force, enrolled in the same intermediate handgun-pistol 2 class.
Crooks was a kid who was confident with guns, according to Jenkins, and appeared to have some background dealing with weapons. He said Crooks laughed when he complimented him on his excellent performance.
Things allegedly became political.
Jenkins recalled how he and the range instructor had discovered they were both Trump fans.
“We praised Trump and the positive changes he brought to our nation. We were energy independent, our economy was booming, our borders were protected, and he was a real go-getter. At that moment, I perceived the child grinning, but he wasn’t uttering a word. He was smiling slightly.”
Reflecting on it, Jenkins believes he was holding back his words, adding that he didn’t think Crooks was happy with anything they spoke about. Jenkins can’t help but wonder whether that chat pushed him over the limit since the shooting’s motivation is still a mystery.
Jenkins said he was unaware for a few days that the gunman who attacked the Trump rally had been his training partner only weeks earlier.
It was the FBI that alerted him that he was sitting “next to evil” in class.
