Would-be Trump assassin wore influencer’s merch during shooting: ‘That sucked to see’
A popular firearms influencer says he was “shocked and confused” to discover that the Donald Trump shooter was wearing one of his branded T-shirts at the time.
“That sucked to see that. That was rough,” Matt Carriker said in a Monday video, which racked up more than 1 million views in its first four hours.
Loner gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was seen in at least two separate images from the shooting wearing a gray T-shirt emblazoned with an American flag on the sleeve and the word “Demolitia” stretched across the chest and back, matching merch that Carriker sells as part of his online channel Demolition Ranch.
One of the widely circulated pictures — also shared by Carriker — showed several armed Secret Service agents standing over Crooks’ body moments after he was fatally shot following the assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
“As a lot of you guys know — and we were shocked and confused to find this out — the shooter who tried to assassinate Trump was wearing merch from my channel, wearing a Demolition Ranch T-shirt,” Carriker told his 11 million subscribers.
“We don’t vet the people who buy our shirts … I wish I could,” Carriker said. “I would love to keep people like that from buying, wearing, being associated with that article of clothing.
“I wish he couldn’t get a shirt, but it happened,” said Carriker, a Texas-based veterinarian who runs two firearms channels.
“I think the difference in a gunman wearing a pair of Nike shoes and a gunman wearing my T-shirt is this brand is much more personal to me than Nike is to its executives,” he said. “To see my name next to the shooter’s name — I wish we could keep that from happening.”
The YouTuber said he has been inundated with calls from media and other interested parties asking whether he ever met Crooks, but emphatically said the gunman was seemingly just a fan who bought a shirt from his online store.
Not much is known about Crooks, but former classmates previously told The Post he was rejected from his high school’s rifle team for being “comically bad” with a gun — as well as for making off-color and concerning jokes.
Crooks narrowly missed Trump as the presidential hopeful spoke at the rally, grazing the politician’s ear.
One audience member was killed and two more were injured.
Crooks apparently shimmied up on top of a nearby building and crawled into his final position with a rifle in hand to line up for the shot, as people below attempted to alert nearby police officers to the situation.
The gunman squeezed off at least five to seven shots at the former president before he was killed, according to law enforcement sources.
An AR-style rifle was later recovered.
According to voter status records, Crooks was a registered Republican. Why he fired at the presumptive GOP presidential nominee is unclear.
