BlackRock Inc. has pulled a 2022 ad featuring the man who tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a rally on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“In 2022, we ran an ad featuring a teacher from Bethel Park High School, in which several unpaid students briefly appeared in the background, including Thomas Matthew Crooks,” the world’s largest investment company told Reuters.
The company said it has removed the ad from circulation and called the attempt to assassinate Trump “abhorrent.”
The video appears to show Crooks sitting at a table with other students while the teacher writes on a dry erase board:
Crooks, the 20-year-old whom U.S. Secret Service officers killed at the scene, was reportedly rejected from his high school’s shooting club for being a poor shot. One classmate said he “couldn’t shoot at all,” per Breitbart News.
The classmate also recalled, “We noticed a few things Thomas said and how he interacted with other people … He said some things that were kind of concerning. You know, obviously, we’re using guns in a school setting so you need to be very careful in that regard.”
Video footage shows the moment the attempted assassination happened while Trump was speaking to a crowd of supporters. Although his face was bloody after his ear was nicked by a bullet, Trump raised his fist as the crowd cheered:
The shooter killed one Trump supporter and wounded two other people at the rally before he himself was killed.
In January, BlackRock vice chairman Philipp Hildebrand warned the prospect of Trump returning to the White House posed a “fundamental” challenge to Europe, Breitbart News reported, adding that his comments came during the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
“The veteran Swiss banker said the re-election of the former U.S. president ‘would challenge Europe fundamentally’ given Trump’s determination to embrace America First in matters from trade to diplomacy, NATO funding, and climate policy,” the outlet said.