Full Story of Heroic Cop at Butler Rally Emerges: 'Never Took His Red Dot Off of Crooks'
When a would-be assassin’s bullets began flying at former President Donald Trump’s Butler, Pennsylvania, rally, it didn’t take long before it was the gunman’s turn to take incoming fire.
The fire and ferocity of one law enforcement officer’s response is now being realized as the public learns more details about the July 13 shooting.
The situation first erupted at the rally when a suspicious man climbed on a roof overlooking the rally grounds and opened fire on Trump as the former president spoke. Trump and two rallygoers ultimately survived after being hit in the gunfire, while a third victim, Corey Comperatore, was killed.
Thomas Matthew Crooks, the gunman, was able to put eight shots downrange before security engaged Crooks and killed him.
After Crooks’ initial eight shots, an officer from below his position fired a round from his M4 rifle that likely disabled the shooter’s gun.
Rep. Clay Higgins noted in a congressional report last month that this officer’s shot struck the buffer tube of Crooks’ AR-15 rifle, likely ending its ability to cycle ammunition.
The incredible shot also “fragged” Crooks — peppering the shooter’s neck and face with bits of metal and plastic exploding out from the rifle’s struck stock.
Now, we finally know who this heroic officer is.
During Thursday’s hearing held by the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump, Higgins revealed him to be Adams Township Police Department sergeant Aaron Zaliponi while reading the officer’s testimony about action taken after he heard the shots.
“I hear the first three, crack, crack, crack,” Higgins read aloud in the hearing, “and at this point I’m like OK, where are we at here? I look up and when I see Crooks, I got his head and shoulders and can see a rifle.”
Zaliponi, who was deployed to Iraq as an infantry squad leader with the Pennsylvania National Guard’s 28th Infantry Division, moved to directly engage the shooter.
“At that point I hear another crack and when I start pulling my weapon up, he gets three off. As I’m getting my target acquired and getting my red dot up, I see the gas emit from his barrel, his muzzle. After that I hear the snap of a fifth shot go off and immediately after that I pressed one off and that’s when he immediately goes down.”
Zaliponi’s shot, the ninth of the event, was quickly followed by a Secret Service counter-sniper’s round, which is considered the killing blow. Despite the official narrative, the Pennsylvania cop is certain he hit Crooks.
“I know I hit him,” Zaliponi’s transcribed interview says. “Like, there’s no doubt about it.”
Higgins says his own investigation leads him to believe the officer’s shot did more than disable the shooter’s rifle, but actually hit Crooks in some way and stopped him.
Photos of Crooks’ rifle and other evidence shows the serious impact the ninth shot had.
“Zaliponi never took his red dot off of Crooks,” Higgins told The Blaze, “and as Crooks rose up from shot 9, Zaliponi was a half-second away from pressing another round into Crooks when the USSS southern counter-sniper team ended the threat.”
Law enforcement and the Secret Service both received criticism for a seemingly sluggish response to Crooks, who was seen and recorded by many people at the rally grounds just before the shooting.
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