Washington: Thomas Matthew Crooks, the gunman who authorities say attempted to assassinate former president Donald Trump was a 20-year-old registered Republican who would have voted for the first time in the presidential election in November.

He lived in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bethel Park, about 56 km south of the Trump rally site where law enforcement officials said he fired at Trump, the presumptive presidential candidate of the Republican Party. Crooks was shot dead by the Secret Service personnel on Saturday, soon after he fired a volley of shots at Trump from an “elevated position outside of the rally venue.”