The early portrait that has emerged of the 20-year-old Pennsylvania man who authorities say tried to assassinate Donald Trump at a campaign rally in the state on Saturday before Secret Service agents shot him to death is a complicated and so far sparse one.
Thomas Matthew Crooks resided in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, a predominantly white, generally affluent suburb of Pittsburgh. Public records show he shared a home with parents who were licensed behavioral care counselors. Those same records contain no mention of any criminal or traffic citations – as well as any financial problems such as foreclosures.
Actions that Crooks took late in his time as a student at Bethel Park high school offered virtually no hint of his political leanings. He was a junior at the school, and it was the first day of Joe Biden’s presidency, when Crooks donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a political action committee aligned with the president’s Democratic party. Public records show his father is a registered Libertarian and his mother a registered Democrat.
Yet eight months later, early in his senior year, Crooks registered to vote as a member of the Republican party, led by Trump since 2016. And he had left his affiliation unchanged when he voted in the November 2022 midterm elections, which took place months after he graduated from Bethel Park high, where he was among a group of students to receive a $500 National Math and Science Initiative “star award”.
One classmate who took a sophomore US history course with Crooks had the impression he was “definitely conservative”. The classmate told the Philadelphia Inquirer how, for a mock debate in the class, Crooks “always stood his ground on the conservative side” while the rest of the students took the liberal position.
However, another former classmate of Crooks’s said he had not shown any particular interest in politics in high school, but they would discuss computers and games. “He was super smart. That’s what really kind of threw me off was, this was, like, a really, really smart kid, like he excelled,” the classmate told Reuters. “Nothing crazy ever came up in any conversation.”
Another young man who described himself as a former schoolmate of Crooks at Bethel Park high school, albeit in a different class, spoke with reporters on Sunday, recalling how his ex-companion “was bullied almost every day” on campus.
Jason Kohler, 21, told NBC News and other outlets that Crooks’s penchant for wearing “hunting” and “military” clothes – and eating alone at lunch – drew derision from his peers, who considered him a “loner” and an “outcast”.
“You know how kids are these days – they’re going to see someone like that and they’re going to target him because they think it’s funny or whatever,” Kohler said to journalists.
While Kohler made clear he wasn’t saying any of those experiences fueled Saturday’s assassination attempt, he added: “It’s honestly kind of sad … He was bullied so much.”
ABC News reported that two former classmates of Crooks told the outlet that he was rejected from their school’s rifle club because he wasn’t a very skilled shot. School officials had not immediately confirmed those recollections.
Crooks reportedly had an account on Discord, an online chat app that began as a space for gamers but gained notoriety in part because the white supremacist who fatally shot 10 people at grocery in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo posted on the platform about his plans to attack the store.
Discord told the gaming news outlet Kotaku that the account that appeared to be linked to Crooks “was rarely utilized”.
“We have no evidence that it was used to plan this incident or discuss his political views,” said the company’s statement to Kotaku. In addition to pledging to cooperate with law enforcement, the statement continued: “Discord strongly condemns violence of any kind, including political violence.”
Crooks thrust himself into the center of the political world on Saturday when he went about an hour north of Bethel Park and got atop the roof of a bottle manufacturing plant in Butler county, Pennsylvania. Nearby, the former US president was speaking at a supporters’ rally as he pursues a return to the White House in November.
Several people who were listening to Trump’s speech outside the rally venue said they spotted Crooks as he brought an AR-style rifle to the plant rooftop and took aim in the direction of the former president. But they said officers did not immediately react to their warnings – assertions that prompted the local district attorney, Richard Goldinger, to tell CNN that it was urgent for investigators to figure out how Crooks “would’ve gotten to the location where he was”.
Crooks ultimately managed to fire several shots toward the stage where Trump was speaking, which was less than 500ft away (152 meters) away. One spectator was killed, and two others were critically wounded. Trump reported that a bullet “pierced the upper part” of his right ear, which was visibly bloodied – but he was otherwise “fine”, he said after Secret Service agents whisked him away from the scene.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Secret Service said, agents returned fire at Crooks and killed him.
ABC News cited multiple law enforcement sources who told the outlet that the rifle the gunman fired on Saturday had been purchased legally by the suspect’s father, Matthew Crooks. Investigators arrived at that conclusion after the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives conducted an urgent trace on the weapon, according to the network.
Separately, the Associated Press reported that authorities had discovered bomb-making materials in Crooks’s home and car, which was parked near the site of Saturday’s Trump rally.
The Wall Street Journal added that police received multiple reports of suspicious packages near where Crooks was, prompting officials to dispatch bomb technicians.
Graphic pictures of the scene circulating on social media showed Crooks had been clad in a T-shirt branded with the name of a YouTube channel dedicated to providing content on guns and demolition.
Late Saturday, the channel’s host reposted a picture on Instagram of law enforcement officers standing over Crooks’s body – with part of the T-shirt’s wording visible – and wrote: “What the hell.”
The FBI identified Crooks as Trump’s would-be assassin late on Saturday. On Sunday, the bureau said all available information suggested Crooks “acted alone” and there were no immediate “public safety concerns” about a larger plot.
Agents nonetheless were later seen canvassing his neighborhood, knocking on doors and asking people if they knew Crooks. They had also seized several of his electronic devices and were reviewing what his communications before the rally may have been.
The FBI said it had not yet uncovered a motive for the apparent assassination attempt – or whether Crooks adhered to any specific ideologies.
Crooks’s social media profile does not contain threatening language, authorities said on Sunday. Investigators have not found evidence of mental health issues.
FBI officials told the AP that Crooks’s family was cooperating with their investigation – part of which also hoped to determine how he took the rifle he fired on Saturday.
Bethel Park skilled nursing and rehabilitation center, where Crooks was employed as a dietary aide, said it was “shocked and saddened” to hear he was responsible for Saturday’s shooting.
“His background check was clean,” said a statement from the facility, which also condemned “all acts of violence”.