BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, has pulled an ad that briefly featured Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old who shot and wounded former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
The company said Crooks was a student at Bethel Park High School and appeared in the 2022 ad with other unpaid teens.
“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 company said in a statement to Reuters Sunday, adding that the ad has been pulled.
Crooks graduated the same year the commercial aired from Bethel Park High, where he was one of a dozen students who received National Math & Science Initiative Star Awards, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
The company noted that while the ad has been removed from circulation, it is still available for investigators to review and is being circulated on social media.
BlackRock, which is expected to release its second-quarter earnings Monday, condemned Saturday’s shooting involving the former president that left one spectator dead and two others injured.
“The assassination attempt on former President Trump is abhorrent,” the company said.
“We’re thankful former President Trump wasn’t seriously injured, and thinking about all the innocent bystanders and victims of this awful act, especially the person who was killed.”
The company did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for additional comment.
BlackRock, which oversees an estimated $9.1 trillion in assets, has garnered backlash in the wake of previous shootings in the US as some of its index funds own shares in gun manufacturers.
This article was originally posted at New York Post
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