Thomas Crooks fired eight shots at a presidential candidate in Butler before a single federal agent responded.
A local sergeant with a barn and a red-dot sight responded in six seconds and stopped the shooting.
The FBI just told that sergeant exactly what they think his shot was worth.
Aaron Zaliponi Fired the Ninth Shot in Six Seconds and the FBI Says It Never Happened
Sgt. Aaron Zaliponi had six seconds after Thomas Crooks opened fire on July 13, 2024 – and he used all of them.
He was positioned 115 yards from Crooks, behind a barn, when the gunman started shooting from the rooftop.
Zaliponi raised his M4 rifle – no magnification, just a red-dot sight – acquired his target and fired a single shot.
His bullet hit the gunstock and shattered it, sending shrapnel into Crooks' face and jaw, and the shooting stopped.
Ten full seconds of silence followed before the Secret Service sniper fired the kill shot.
The bipartisan congressional task force concluded Zaliponi's shot "set up the delayed but successful kill shot by a Secret Service counter-sniper."
The FBI claimed it found "no forensic evidence" that Zaliponi's round struck Crooks or his rifle.
Crooks' own autopsy X-rays show shattered bullet fragments in his right shoulder.
"There was over a 10-second pause, and it wasn't until after that 10 seconds a Secret Service sniper took Thomas Crooks down," said Kim Geyer, Zaliponi's mother-in-law and Butler County Commissioner.
The FBI picked its story and decided Zaliponi's shot didn't fit.
The Secret Service Failed at Butler Then Took Credit From the Cop Who Stopped the Shooting
The Secret Service failed so catastrophically at Butler that Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned in disgrace.
The same agents who could not keep a 20-year-old with a ladder off a rooftop with a direct sightline to the president now want sole credit for ending the threat they allowed to develop.
They needed one redemptive detail – their sniper ended it – so they buried the local cop who made that shot possible.
The FBI still has Zaliponi's personal rifle and has not returned it.
Trump honored NYPD Officer Aaron Edwards at the White House for stopping a terrorist attack, hosted law enforcement in the Rose Garden, and attended the memorial for three fallen Florida deputies. He also signed the Medal of Sacrifice Act into law – a presidential honor for first responders who give their lives on duty.
At the October 2024 Return Rally in Butler, Trump personally welcomed local first responders onstage while Zaliponi stood nearby working security and was not invited up.
"There was no consideration that our local people, who weren't there to protect the president, ended up being the ones that neutralized the threat," Geyer told the New York Post.
The NRA awarded Zaliponi its 2025 Officer of the Year, the Pennsylvania attorney general recognized him publicly, and the city of Pittsburgh honored him.
The only place Sgt. Aaron Zaliponi has not been recognized is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The FBI Still Has Zaliponi's Rifle and the White House Has Never Called
The FBI and Secret Service had one of the worst days in American law enforcement history at Butler – they let a 20-year-old walk a ladder to a rooftop 400 feet from a presidential candidate and fire at will.
A local Army combat veteran – three tours, no fanfare, a man who lost a coin flip that put him outside the barn instead of in Trump's motorcade – stopped the massacre they allowed to begin.
The agencies that failed spent the next two years making sure nobody knew it.
Trump has been the most pro-cop president in modern memory, and he means it.
But the FBI's version of events reached the Oval Office before the truth did, and Aaron Zaliponi's story went with it.
Zaliponi himself doesn't want the attention – he told reporters he's "not looking for publicity" and didn't even tell his family about his role until weeks later, on a lake house vacation.
His family wants the man who stopped Trump's assassin to shake the hand of the man he saved.
That phone call is overdue.
Sources:
- Chadwick Moore, "Local cop who neutralized would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks cut out of narrative by embarrassed feds: family," New York Post, October 28, 2026.
- "Top Cop: How an Armed American Saved President Trump's Life," American Rifleman, 2024.
- "Butler County sniper honored for actions at Trump rally," CBS News Pittsburgh, 2025.
- "Palm Beach Patrol Deaths Push Trump To Sign Medal of Sacrifice Law," Hoodline, June 1, 2026.
- "Local Officials Push Back Against Acting Secret Service Director's Claims: 'Not Going to Take Unnecessary Blame,'" Western Journal, 2024.
