"Tear Up Texas": FBI Encouraged a 2015 Shooting & Did Nothing to Stop It

Remembering the Curtis Culwell Center attack in which an undercover FBI agent encouraged shooters, followed them to the attack site, and didn't stop them.

The most plausible hypothesis for the July 13, 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania is that Thomas Matthew Crooks was already on the radar of the Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, or the FBI in the days before he went to the event with his rifle.

Most likely, he indulged in some online chatter with others whose true identity he himself did not know. In the course of this chatter, he identified himself as being passionately interested in shooting rifles and frequently practiced firing his rifle at a range—a representation that could be easily verified. A good investigator would also examine the hypothesis that he somehow—probably in veiled language—indicated he was interested in shooting Donald Trump.

Instead of discouraging this fantasy, someone on the other side of the chat encouraged it, and encouraged him to attend the scheduled rally in Butler to take a shot at Trump. Again, the language was probably veiled—something along the lines of, “I hear there’ll be a nice shooting range at the Butler Show Grounds this Saturday between the American Glass Research building and the stage.”

Contemplating this hypothesis reminded me of the Curtis Culwell Center attack in Garland, Texas on May 3, 2015. The perpetrators had been monitored by the FBI for years, as they were suspected of consorting with Islamic terrorists and probably planning a terrorist attack on American soil.

The would-be shooters, who lived in Phoenix, Arizona, thought they were exchanging text messages with a fellow Islamic terrorists. In fact they were texting with an undercover FBI agent who encouraged them to attack an event scheduled at the Curtis Culwell Center. As the agent memorably put it in a text message, “Tear Up Texas.”

The two perpetrators then loaded their car in Phoenix and hit the road to Arlington. Again, unbeknownst to them, they were being tracked the entire time. On the day of the convention, they parked by the Curtis Culwell Center, got out of their car with their loaded weapons, and walked towards the entrance—with the FBI undercover agent following right behind them.

While the undercover agent did nothing to intervene, a local security guard saw the armed men approaching, and he took decisive action, using his own sidearm to neutralize the men before they could enter the convention center with their semi-automatic rifles and innumerable loaded magazines. Had the security guard not intervened, God knows how many people in the building would have been shot.

Not long after the incident, it was discovered that the undercover FBI agent had encouraged the shooters, followed them to the event, and done nothing to intervene. The security guard—who was shot and wounded but survived his injury—sued the FBI and Department of Justice, which dodged liability when their declaration of sovereign immunity was upheld in court.

Readers who are interested in learning more about the Curtis Culwell Center attack may check out this 2018 news report on the lawsuit.

A proper investigation of the Butler, Pennsylvania assassination attempt on Donald Trump would start with the hypothetical proposition at least one federal law enforcement agent knew about Thomas Matthew Crooks before he attended the rally. Crooks drove to the rally without encountering any intervention and then climbed onto the roof of the American Glass Research building with his rifle—again with no law enforcement intervening to stop him.