Video does not show Trump shooter saying 'slash Republican throats'

"Thomas Matthew Crooks," says a July 14, 2024 post sharing the video on X. "'Slash Republican throats.'"

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Screenshot from X taken July 15, 2024

Another post adds: "'Slash Republican throats. Death to Fascists.' Unhinged shouting from the alleged suspect from yesterday's attempt on DJT’s life."

Similar posts spread across platforms -- including in Spanish -- after authorities identified Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania as the man who opened fire at Trump from a nearby rooftop during a July 13 rally in Butler. Crooks hit Trump in the ear, killed a bystander and critically wounded two other spectators before a Secret Service sniper team shot and killed him.

The short, blurry clip shows a man screaming "slash Republican throats," "death to fascists" and other insults.

But the video is old and unrelated to the assassination attempt on Trump.

A reverse image search surfaced a clearer version of the same footage in February 2020 news reports about a man threatening a student group at Arizona State University (archived here, here and here).

The organization, Students for Trump at Arizona State University, first posted the clip to X on February 5, 2020 (archived here).

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Screenshot from X taken July 15, 2024

Bryan Bouchard, police information officer for the Arizona State University Police Department, told AFP that claims attempting to link the footage to Crooks are inaccurate.

"I can confirm that the man from the 2020 video is not the same individual from the shooting in Pennsylvania," Bouchard said, without naming the person in the recording. "The individual from the 2020 video was a student at the time of the incident four years ago."

After AFP reached out, Arizona State University President Michael Crow released a statement denouncing the claims as "nonsense" (archived here).

"To be clear, the individual who attempted to assassinate former President Trump had no association with ASU and was not the person seen on a video on the ASU campus four years ago," Crow said.

"ASU concluded its investigation back in 2020, in conjunction with the FBI, and determined the subject in the video was not a credible threat -- and that person has a different name and different date of birth than the suspect in the attempted assassination of former President Trump over the weekend."

Crooks would have been in high school at the time; according to the Bethel Park School District, he graduated in 2022 (archived here).

A former classmate told US media the suspected shooter was quiet and frequently bullied.

His political leanings were not immediately clear. News reports indicate he was a registered Republican but that he previously gave money to a progressive political action committee.

AFP has debunked other misinformation about the Trump assassination attempt here.