A local SWAT officer credited with helping stop the gunman who attempted to assassinate President Trump at a 2024 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, has been overlooked by federal officials, according to his family.
Adams Township Emergency Service Unit SWAT member Sgt. Aaron Zaliponi is identified in official reports as the officer who fired the shot that struck would-be assassin Thomas Crooks during the July 13 campaign event.
“That shot neutralized Thomas Crooks,” Zaliponi’s mother-in-law, Kim Geyer, told The Post in an exclusive interview. “It prevented a mass shooting. He saved a lot of lives that day.”
“Ask anyone who was there. There was a pause of more than 10 seconds, and it wasn’t until after those 10 seconds that a Secret Service sniper took Thomas Crooks down.”
Crooks opened fire at 6:11 p.m. from the roof of a shed just beyond the main security perimeter, roughly 400 feet from Trump. He fired eight rounds before Zaliponi returned fire.
Zaliponi’s shot, referred to in official reports as the “ninth shot,” struck Crooks’ rifle stock and shattered it. The resulting fragments “smashed into Crooks’ right neck and jaw area,” according to a bipartisan congressional report. The impact halted the attack before a Secret Service counter-sniper fired the fatal shot that struck Crooks in the head.
Zaliponi was positioned behind a barn about 115 yards from Crooks. The gunman’s bullets grazed Trump’s ear, killed 50-year-old former fire chief Corey Comperatore and critically wounded two other rallygoers.
“He was on the ground, shooting up at Thomas Crooks,” Geyer said. After Zaliponi fired, she added, “Crooks rolled over and was stunned.”
The congressional “Final Report of Findings and Recommendations from the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of President Trump” said Zaliponi’s shot “set up the delayed but successful kill shot by a Secret Service counter-sniper.”
The report also cited testimony from Zaliponi, who said: “I knew I hit him … I have combat experience. His demeanor … there was that jerking motion … he kind of jerked down to my left, his right. Then he slowly rolled like he just had no strength, whatever.”
However, the FBI said it found no forensic evidence proving that the ninth shot struck Crooks or his rifle.
“As far as the FBI and the Secret Service go, nobody wanted to take this into account. They just wanted the narrative to be that Thomas Crooks was killed and the threat was eliminated.”
“The Secret Service wanted the credit. After the massive security failures, they wanted it to appear that they had gotten their act together and taken this guy out.”
“There was no consideration that our local people, who weren’t there specifically to protect the president, ended up being the ones who neutralized the threat,” Geyer said.
Geyer was seated in the bleachers behind Trump, about 20 feet from the podium, when the shots rang out and the bloodied former and future president dropped to the ground.
“That’s not to diminish what the Secret Service sniper did. He deserves credit. He was doing his job and protecting the president,” Geyer said.
The sniper who killed Crooks has never been publicly identified, although Trump has referred to him in interviews as “David.”
According to a detailed shot-by-shot analysis of audio and video assembled by a bipartisan House task force, 10.05 seconds passed between Zaliponi’s ninth shot and the Secret Service sniper’s fatal round.
By comparison, 5.86 seconds elapsed between Crooks’ first shot and Zaliponi’s response.
X-rays from Crooks’ autopsy reviewed by The Post show a bullet fragment lodged in his right shoulder.
Geyer said the rifle Zaliponi used to stop the gunman was taken by the FBI for ballistic testing and has still not been returned.
Three months after the assassination attempt, Trump returned to Butler for a “Return Rally” on Oct. 4, 2024. During the event, he invited local first responders who had been involved in the shooting response onto the stage.
Geyer said Zaliponi was also working at the October rally, but was not invited to appear.
She said the family remains perplexed by what it sees as a presidential cold shoulder, particularly because Trump has often publicly honored law enforcement heroes.
During his second term alone, Trump has created a new presidential honor, the Medal of Sacrifice, awarded posthumously to law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty.
This year, Trump has also hosted police events in the Rose Garden, attended a memorial service for three fallen Florida officers and personally thanked NYPD Officer Aaron Edwards at a White House event for his actions during an attempted terrorist attack in New York City in March 2026.
Yet Zaliponi, the officer his family says helped save the president’s life, has received no comparable recognition.
Meanwhile, gun-rights groups, the Fraternal Order of Police, Pennsylvania’s attorney general and the city of Pittsburgh have all honored Zaliponi, showering him with accolades that, so far, have received little attention beyond Pennsylvania.
“President Donald J. Trump’s life was saved by an armed American in Butler, Pennsylvania. Thanks to swift action by law enforcement officers like Sgt. Aaron Zaliponi, an even greater tragedy was prevented,” the National Rifle Association wrote on social media while marking the two-year anniversary of the Butler shooting. The NRA had named Zaliponi its 2025 “Officer of the Year.”
Geyer, a Republican who serves as a Butler County commissioner, said she does not believe the lack of recognition is personal. Instead, she suspects the FBI and Secret Service are so embarrassed by the security failures that they have clung to the one detail that casts them in a favorable light: their own sniper ultimately killed the gunman.
“They were thrown under the bus by the Secret Service and the FBI,” she said.
“It all started with a coin toss. The president’s people said they wanted one of the local officers with the president’s motorcade. It came down to Aaron and another officer. Aaron said, ‘Somebody flip a coin,’ and Aaron lost and was positioned outside the barn.”
His mother-in-law said Zaliponi’s presence at the scene in the first place was an “act of God.”
Zaliponi declined to comment, saying only that he is “not looking for publicity.”
He also kept his role in stopping the attack from his family for weeks, eventually telling them while they were staying at a lake house.
“I had no idea about Aaron’s involvement until several weeks later. That’s the type of guy Aaron is,” said Geyer, who described the 40-something father and military veteran—who completed three tours—as “humble” and “gracious.”
“I don’t know if they don’t want to recognize Aaron because they think he expects something. He really doesn’t. Aaron doesn’t want any glory,” his mother-in-law said.
“I just hoped Aaron would get to meet President Trump one day.”
