Did a photo of the attempted assassin of Donald Trump surface, showing that Thomas Matthew Crooks was transgender? No, that's not true: The person in the photo on social media is not Crooks. The photo appeared first on 4chan, posted by an anonymous user who replied to someone's questioning its truth that "spreading rumors is fun." A close-up photo of Crooks' face taken after he was killed by a sniper shows that he had a beard and mustache and no visible scars or holes from lip piercings at the time he died.
The image was first posted on 4chan (archived here) on July 16, 2024. It spread quickly across social media and surfaced on X on July 17, 2024, in a post (archived here) by @Sassafrass_84. It was captioned:
There were so many red flags, and not one person in the governor could stop this dude? Yea, no. I ain't buying what's selling. I'm tired of the lies.
Text at the bottom of the image reads:
Anyone know why they aren't using this photo of the shooter
This is how the post appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Fri Jul 19 00:15:51 2024 UTC)
On July 16, 2024, an anonymous user with an identifying ID: f5teOiZ2, on the 4chan forum "/pol/ - Politically Incorrect" made a post titled, "Shooter was a NAFO trannie." This thread is now archived and further replies cannot be made. NAFO is an acronym for "North Atlantic Fella Organization," which is described by knowyourmeme.com as:
NAFO stands for the North Atlantic Fella Organization, an alliance of meme posters styled after the real-life "NATO" (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) which mobilize memes to support Ukraine and fight Russia online.
(Source: 4chan.org screenshot taken on Thu Jul 18 23:14:09 2024 UTC)
The rest of their post caption (pictured above) said:
You can't make this up LOL.
Another user questioned:
You sure that's the same guy?
To which the anonymous poster, with the same identifying ID: f5teOiZ2, replied:
Not really, but spreading rumors is fun and everybody hates NATO.
While the photo posted to 4chan was a high-resolution 1,160 by 1,451 pixel image with no words on it, the image that was used in the X post has been altered to add stylized TikTok video formatting. The screenshot at the top of this article shows the X post photo includes the words, "Live, Following, Shop, For You," and a search icon across the top edge. The photo lacks the full set of TikTok video features, such as a caption, the posting account, the like, share and comment buttons that would be present if this were an actual screenshot of a TikTok video. The Lead Stories composite image below shows a detail of the differences in the photos from the two posts and the addition of TikTok effects.
(Source: Lead Stories composite image made with 4chan.org and X screenshots taken on Thu Jul 18 21:04:34 2024 UTC)
A graphic image of Crooks' face after he was killed by a Secret Service sniper has circulated online. One post (archived here) on X was posted on July 13, 2024. This image shows that at the time Crooks had a mustache and beard, and there was no visible lip-piercing jewelry, holes or scars on his upper lip. The person in the photo purported to be Crooks has two piercings in the upper lip -- they are not Crooks.
More fact checks by Lead Stories about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024 can be found here, here and here.
