Thomas Matthew Crooks’s motivation to shoot at US president Donald Trump remains elusive. Here’s what we know about him
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Sunday said a 20-year-old Pennsylvanian man, Thomas Matthew Crooks, shot at former United States president Donald Trump during an election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Crooks, who came within inches of killing a presidential candidate, was shot dead by the law enforcement. The incident left a 50-year-old man dead, two other attendees wounded, and Trump’s right ear injured.
According to officials, Crooks slipped onto a rooftop location 150 yards (140 meters) from the stage where Trump was speaking, and began firing an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle, a weapon legally bought by his father.
Who was Thomas Matthew Crooks?
A resident of Bethel Park in Pennsylvania, Thomas Matthew Crooks was a registered Republican who would have been eligible to cast his first presidential vote in the presidential elections scheduled to be held on November 5 this year.
He had graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022 with a reputation of a bright, and quiet classmate, news agency Reuters reported. His high school counselor described him as “respectful,” someone who mostly “kept to himself” and said he never considered Crooks to be political.
The FBI said that his social media profile does not contain threatening language, nor have they been able to find any history of mental health issues. Officials could not arrive at his political leanings, as his social media profiles were devoid of any posts promoting violence or similar activities.
Moreover, Crooks, during his school days, had tried out for the rifle team but was turned away because he was a bad shooter, a current captain of the team told news agency AP. One of his classmates also said in an interview that Crooks’ interests centered on building computers and playing games.
Crooks used to work as a dietary aide at a nursing home, the home’s administrator said in a statement.
According to public records, his father is a registered Republican and his mother a registered Democrat.
What happened at Trump’s election rally?
Crooks came to law enforcement’s attention right outside the election campaign event of Trump, when he was noticed by spectators as “acting strangely,” news agency AP reported.
Attendees noticed him climbing a ladder, following which officers began their search for him, but were unable to locate him before he made it to the roof, an official said.
While an officer encountered Crooks on the roof, he could not wield his gun under such circumstances, after which the shooter took a shot towards Trump. The Secret Service snipers then shot him, AP quoted two officials as saying.
The FBI said they were investigating the incident as a potential act of domestic terrorism, and believe that Crooks was “acting alone”, but remain unsure of his motives and political beliefs.
A video posted over social media, and geolocated by news agency AP, showed Crooks wearing a grey t-shirt with a black American flag on the right arm, and lying motionless on the roof of a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm Show grounds where Trump’s rally was held.
Images of Crooks’ body reviewed by the news agency showed that he appears to have been wearing a T-shirt from Demolition Ranch, a popular YouTube channel that regularly posts videos of its creator firing off handguns and assault rifles at targets that include human mannequins.
