The popular firearms influencer said he was “shocked and perplexed” to learn that the Trump shooter was wearing his branded T-shirt at the time.
“That was awful to watch. It was painful.” Matt Carriker He said in a video on MondayIt garnered over 1 million views in the first four hours.
The lone shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was seen in at least two separate images from the shooting wearing a gray T-shirt with an American flag on the sleeve and the word “Demolitia” on the chest and back — the same merchandise Carriker sells on his online channel, Demolition Ranch.
One widely circulated photo, also shared by Carriker, shows several armed Secret Service agents standing near Crooks’ body moments after he was shot and killed during an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
“As many of you know, and we were shocked and disturbed to learn, the shooter who attempted to assassinate President Trump was wearing merchandise from my channel, including a Demolition Ranch T-shirt,” Carriker told his 11 million subscribers.
“We don’t vet people who buy our shirts… I wish we could,” Carriker said. “We want to make sure those people don’t buy them, wear them, or have anything to do with them.”
“I wish he hadn’t gotten the shirt, but that’s what happened,” said Carriker, a veterinarian in Texas who runs two firearms channels.
“I think the difference between him wearing Nike shoes and him wearing my T-shirt is that Nike is a much more personal brand to the executives, and this brand is a much more personal brand to me,” he said. “Seeing my name next to his name makes me want to stop this from happening.”
The YouTuber said he had been inundated with calls from media and others asking if he had met Crooks, but stressed that he appeared to be just a fan who had bought a shirt from his online store.
Not much is known about Crooks, but a former classmate previously told The Washington Post that Crooks was kicked off his high school rifle team for being “comically bad” with a gun and for telling crude, eye-catching jokes.
As presidential candidate Trump spoke at a rally, Crooks avoided him, staying just within earshot of the politician.
One spectator was killed and another was seriously injured.
Crooks appears to have climbed to the top of a nearby building and crawled to his final position, rifle in hand, ready to fire while people below tried to alert nearby officers to what was happening.
Law enforcement sources said the gunman fired at least five to seven shots before killing the former president.
An AR-type rifle was later recovered.
Voter records show Crooks is a registered Republican, and it is unclear why he would attack the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.
