The neck is visibly swollen at the time of the shot in a few videos so it's definitely not an artifact or trick of the light.
I'm pretty sure the Paramount Tactical guy made note of the swelling of Charlie's head/neck/chest in one of his videos as well.
A monkey wrench indeed!
That would move the investigation from a Crooks case to a Mangione case.
I encourage everyone to
not use Crooks or any other mass shooting/assassination as their 'baseline heuristic' for analyzing what is and is not possible in this instance. Each one, when you drill down into them, was different, although they shared similar, overlapping elements. The Butler attempt was actually highly unusual in that the patsy was intended to be the actual vector of assassination. With the exception of fictional scenarios, as in
Manchurian Candidate type movies, I don't recall that ever happening in any high-profile shooting (other than at Butler). The patsy is usually just serving the function of being 'in the area' or even, in the Sandy Hook case, 'holding a gun', and so he's useful for post-op narrative purposes, but otherwise he's functionally useless.
The assassination of RFK, which the Kirk one reminds me most of because of similarities in their social and geopolitical connections or ramifications, had a 'mind-programmed' patsy who was not only 'physically there', he was holding and firing a gun, but all of his bullets missed the target. The conspirators apparently anticipated that, hence the real assassin was right next to RFK, ready to kill him at point-blank range behind his right ear the moment Sirhan Sirhan began shooting erratically.
Finally, in the USA, since the 60s and until very recently, most political assassinations are 'stealth assassinations' - car accidents, plane accidents, heart-attacks, 'falls', 'burglaries', etc. Andrew Breitbart 'dropped dead' after leaving a restaurant in L.A. (public verdict: heart attack) - Micheal Hastings's vehicle was driven, probably remotely, at high speed into a wall (public verdict: car accident) - Seth Rich was shot dead in the middle of DC 'while being mugged'. Now, that changed recently with Butler, because soon afterwards you had Brian Thompson, the United Healthcare CEO, being publicly assassinated by a pro, and Mangione being framed for it. Here, with the Kirk assassination, you have the third 'political' assassination in a row where the public is
meant to see it as a political assassination.