The FBI says it has not yet identified a motive for the shooting
By Susie Coen, US CORRESPONDENT and James Kilner
14 July 2024 •
The man who shot Donald Trump has been identified as a 20-year-old registered Republican who was bullied at school and had an obsession with guns.
Classmates described Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was killed by a special forces sniper after firing from a nearby roof at the former US president during a Pennsylvania rally, as an “outcast” who was relentlessly teased about his appearance.
A car belonging to the gunman was found on Sunday parked near the rally laden with explosives.
Bomb-making materials were also discovered at his family home after heavily-armed US security agents carried out a raid on the property in Bethel Park, a village about an hour’s drive south of Butler, the small and hard-up post-industrial town where he tried to shot Trump.
Crooks was reportedly wearing a t-shirt bearing the emblem of a pro-gun YouTube channel when he carried out the assassination attempt by firing a volley of bullets towards the stage a few minutes after Trump began speaking.
Crooks opened fire while the former US president was addressing a crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania, leaving one audience member dead and two others badly hurt.
One shot grazed Trump’s ear, spraying blood across his face. Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old father of two who was sitting behind Trump, was shot and killed, and two other people were badly injured.
The FBI said that it regarded Crooks as carrying out “an assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump”.
“This remains an active and ongoing investigation,” it said.
The Pentagon confirmed that Crooks did not have any military ties.
“We’ve confirmed with each of the military service branches that there is no military service affiliation for the suspect with that name or date of birth in any branch, active or reserve component in their respective databases,” Pentagon spokesman Maj Gen Patrick S Ryder said.
Law enforcement sources said they believed the weapon used to shoot Trump was purchased by Crook’s father, who bought a weapon at least six months ago.
Crook’s father told CNN he was trying to find out “what the hell” was going on but that he would talk to law enforcement before speaking about his son publicly.
The gunman, who reportedly worked in a nursing home, did not have a criminal history reflected in Pennsylvania’s public court records, and officials said they had not identified a motive.
The Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center said Crooks “performed his job without concern and his background check was clean”.
Unconfirmed videos and photos on the internet showed Crooks to be a tall, slender, white man who wore glasses and had long sandy-brown hair.
Voter-registration data showed that he was a registered Republican voter but on Jan 20 2021, two weeks after pro-Trump alt-Right supporters stormed the White House, Crooks gave $15 (£11.80) to a grassroots Democratic group.
A bespeckled Crooks, who was pictured in his Bethel Park High School yearbook photo wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the American flag, was described by former classmates as an “outcast” who was bullied daily.
“He was bullied almost everyday. He would sit alone at lunch. I mean, he was just an outcast, and you know how kids are nowadays,” one former pupil told NBC.
“They go see someone like that and target him because they think it’s funny or whatever. It’s the best way I can describe it. And honestly, it’s kinda sad. I don’t want to say this is what provoked it, but you never know.
“He was bullied so much. So much [in high school]. They just made fun, for the way he dressed, his appearance.”
Sarah D’Angelo, a former classmate of Crooks at Bethel Park High School, told the Wall Street Journal the gunman Crooks had never appeared political at school.
“He never outwardly spoke about his political views or how much he hated Trump or anything,” she said.
The FBI said that Crooks was not carrying any identification when he made the assassination attempt and had to be identified using DNA samples.
“We don’t currently have an identified motive, although our investigators are working tirelessly to attempt to identify what that motive was,” said Kevin Rojek, an FBI Pittsburgh special agent.
Crooks shot at Trump from the roof of a shed outside the security cordon thrown up around the rally in a park in central Butler at around 6.15 pm local time, shortly after the former US president had started speaking.
Witnesses said Crooks “bear crawled” across a rooftop less than 100 metres away from Trump, the Republican presidential candidate frontrunner. They said that Crooks then spent two or three minutes steadying himself, before taking aim and firing at Trump.
US security forces said that they had recovered an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle lying by Crook’s body. AR-15 semi-automatic rifles have been used in several mass shootings in the US and have become the focus of the gun debate.
Photos also showed a member of the US security forces standing over Crooks’ body. Crooks was wearing beige cargo-style shorts and a grey t-shirt bearing the logo of a pro-gun YouTube channel called Demolition Ranch.
Crooks didn’t have a criminal record. A video purportedly showing him wearing a black gown as he graduates from the Bethel Park High School in 2022 was circulating on social media.
Open-source intelligence analysts reported that Crooks did not appear to use mainstream social media channels such as Facebook or Instagram and had an almost negligible internet footprint, which is highly unusual for a 20 year-old.
Instead, analysts said that Crooks corresponded with friends and associates on a Discord server which they were now trying to access.
Discord servers are restricted ring-fenced sections of the internet. They are often used by gaming groups and communities as secure chat rooms but are also used by fringe organisations to push their ideologies and discuss wild conspiracy theories and plots.
The Demolition Ranch YouTube channel is one of the most popular pro-gun channels in the US. It has nearly 12 million subscribers and is a mix of instructional videos of clients learning how to shoot at the Demolition Ranch range in Texas and middle-aged men glorifying sniper rifles.
Crooks appeared to have featured in a TV advert for the BlackRock finance company filmed at Bethel Park High School and broadcast in 2023.
In the advert promoting teachers’ retirement plans, a boy who appears to be Crooks was sat in one of the classrooms during an economics lesson.
On its website, Bethel Park High School promotes itself as a traditional school in an affluent middle-class Pittsburgh suburb that has a “distinguished alumni”.
During his senior year, Crooks was among several students to receive an award for math and science, according to a Tribune-Review story at the time.
Crooks tried out for his school’s rifle team but failed to make it because he was a “comically bad shot” and made jokes deemed inappropriate with firearms around, two former classmates told The New York Post.
He missed his target by close to 20ft, Jameson Murphy said.
“He tried out…and was such a comically bad shot he was unable to make the team and left after the first day,” he added.
Crooks was a waste of space.
In mitigation:
“He was bullied almost everyday. He would sit alone at lunch. I mean, he was just an outcast, and you know how kids are nowadays,” one former pupil told NBC.”
Bullying is a heinous crime that causes lifelong damage. No one recovers from it. At best, the victims just learn to live with it.
In worse case scenarios like this, the damage is more profound.
One way to tackle school bullies is to lock up the parents; it is their fault.
Couldn’t agree more strongly. Growing up, many years ago, bullying was sort of a one or two off incidents. Sure kids made fun of certain kids but I don’t recall the level currently existing. It’s a real tragedy, but in all honesty! I blame the parents of the bullies. They should be condemned. Although I don’t know anything about his family life, my prayers go out to him, his parents and the many kids being bullied today who are not receiving the care they deserve.
The FBI is a collection of idiots if they can’t see the motive. He hated Trump for hijacking the Rupublican party. So do I. And I’ll vote for Biden as the lesser evil.
The fact that they haven’t said so yet doesn’t mean they don’t know.
^b$rt
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F3mcLoVa4AANA3o?format=png&name=900×900
Wonder why this poster used an English site to expose the problems with UK reporting? very telling About the bias of the poster
Why no mention of ACTBLUE?? He was 20 years old and would not have voted for Trump, as he was too young to vote n 2020.
selective reporting.
It mentioned his donation but I don’t think it specifically named the group. Rereading…..It says:”grassroots Democratic group.”
Correct, but the organization, ACTBLUE, ls huge….based ln NYC, near Trump Tower.
All other articles l’ve read, have their name listed, some ln bold letters.
The only ones who donate to them, are the liberals, as that’s what they support.
15$ is hardly a large contribution nor does it imply being more than a “one off”. It was just a couple weeks after J6, hard to tell motive, or reason could have been compulsory.
The amount to you maybe insignificant but to a teenager at the time, who knows. Not many l know even donate to political causes. Those that do, support the cause.
Let me explain lt to all this way. lf was back, or still ln Ukraine and the teenage, young man was donating to the Russian cause, even lf lt was $1, as you say, l would still be concerned he ls supporting that cause.
From what has been reported he worked in health support care which may or may not have been a fairly decent living.
“The only ones who donate to them, are the liberals, as that’s what they support.”
ActBlue Charities is a fund-raising platform. They don’t support only liberals; they also raise money for groups working on disaster relief or a humanitarian crisis. For example, here they were collecting for Hurricane Michael relief efforts
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bn-hurricanemichael
“Why no mention of ACTBLUE??”
Maybe because ActBlue is just a conduit. What he actually donated to was the Progressive Turnout Project, which is a voter turnout group.
The fact he was a registered republican may or may not indicate his politics. Many democrats in some states registered republican so they can skew the results in the Republican primary or Republicans register democrat to skew the democratic primary. A well known tactic by strong partisans.
His father is a registered Republican and his mother is a registered democrat.
To me the most telling indicator of his political leanings is his donation to the national democratic funding effort.
You also have to wonder if as a loner he got all his “news” from social media which is filled with democratic propaganda and other leftist hate filled rants which may have had a tragic effect on his political views.
His Father is a Libertarian.
Correct. The test of reasonableness ls clear, people donate to their true beliefs and concerns. They do not waste money on something they DO NOT believe ln.
ACTBLUE was his cause and also who indoctrinated him, as they train rioters/protestors too.
https://secure.actblue.com/
He was a conservative.
He donated to the liberals because he considered liberals the lesser evil compared to the MAGA, which, in spite of being called far-right conservatives by the media, are in no way, shape, or form, conservatives. They are mere personality-cult populists. And Trump is a mere con man.