Three days after the event, a puzzling portrait is emerging of the 20-year-old man who nearly killed former President Donald Trump with a high-velocity bullet: a smart loner with few friends, a seemingly thin footprint on social media and no hint of strong political beliefs that would suggest a motive for an assassination attempt.
Even after the FBI hacked Thomas Matthew Crooks’ cellphone, searched his computer, home and car, and interviewed more than 100 people, the mystery of why he opened fire on Mr. Trump’s rally on Saturday, a bullet grazing the Republican candidate’s ear, remains as elusive as it was when it happened.
“He would sit by himself, not talk to anybody, not even try to make conversation,” said Liam Campbell, 17, echoing the comments of classmates who remember the shooter from growing up with him in a quiet town outside Pittsburgh.
“He was a weird boy, but there was nothing dangerous about him,” he added. “He was just a normal person who didn’t seem to like talking to people.”
It has not been made public whether the shooter left any writing, a suicide note, a social media post or any other indicator of why he attacked Trump. A law enforcement official briefed on the ongoing investigation told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity, that Crooks’ phone did not provide significant clues about his motive or whether he acted alone or with others.
Crooks’ political leanings are also unclear. Crooks was registered as a Republican in Pennsylvania, but federal campaign finance reports also show that he donated $15 to a progressive political action committee on Jan. 20, 2021, the day Democratic President Joe Biden was sworn in.
The lack of a satisfactory explanation led Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to recall the lengthy federal investigation into the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, the deadliest such attack in the nation’s history. That investigation ended after 17 months with no motive found to explain what drove the 64-year-old gunman to fire more than 1,000 bullets into a crowd of onlookers, other than “achieving some level of infamy.”
Crooks, who was slightly built and wore wire-rimmed glasses and had thin hair parted in the middle, went by the nickname “Tom.” Classmates at Bethel Park High School described him as intelligent but aloof, often wearing headphones and preferring to sit alone at lunch to look at his phone. Some said he was often teased by other students because of the clothes he wore, including hunting gear, and because he continued to wear a mask after the pandemic ended.
“He was bullied almost every day,” said Jason Kohler, a classmate. “He was just an outcast.”
After graduating from high school in 2022, Crooks enrolled at Allegheny County Community College, where he graduated in May with an associate degree with honors in engineering. He also worked at a nursing home as a dietary aide.
A portrait of “socially isolated people”
A 1997 study by the secret service of assassination attempts since 1949 found that there was no single indicator that someone might attempt to kill a public figure. However, two-thirds of all attackers were described as “social isolates.”
Like Crooks, few of them had a history of violent crime or a criminal record. Most of the attackers also had experience handling guns but did not officially own them or have military training, the study found.
As a junior in high school, Crooks tried out for his school’s shooting team but was rejected because of his lack of shooting skills, the AP reported. Through his family, he was a member of the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club, a shooting range about 11 miles (17 kilometers) east of Bethel Park.
“We know very little about him,” club president Bill Sellitto told the AP. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing that happened Saturday — that’s not what we do at all.”
The club has an outdoor shooting range for high-powered rifles, and targets placed at distances of up to 170 yards.
Crooks was well within that distance when he opened fire on Mr. Trump on Saturday, about 135 yards from where he was speaking, firing two rapid-fire rounds at the former president from an AR-15-style rifle.
His father, Matthew Crooks, purchased the gun in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, in 2013 from Gander Mountain, an outdoor retail chain.
The day before the shooting, Thomas Crooks went to the gym and practiced at the shooting range, according to a federal intelligence report obtained by the AP. The day of the attack, he bought 50 rounds of 5.56 mm ammunition for his rifle at a local gun store and drove alone to Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump’s rally was being held.
He pulled into a gas station parking lot a few hundred yards from the event. He was wearing a gray T-shirt with the logo of a popular gun YouTube channel, camouflage shorts and a black belt.
Witnesses and law enforcement officials say Crooks walked for at least a half-hour before climbing to the roof of a building adjacent to the Butler Farm Show, where Mr. Trump was speaking. As spectators shouted for police to intervene, Crooks opened fire, unleashing two rapid bursts. A Secret Service countersniper returned fire within 15 seconds, killing Crooks with a bullet to the head.
Mr. Trump said this week that a bullet hit his right ear and that only a last-second twist of his head prevented him from being fatally wounded. One of the bullets aimed at Mr. Trump killed Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter who was in the stands. Two other people were seriously injured.
In the absence of a clear picture of Crooks’ motives, many people on both sides of the American political spectrum have tried to fill the void with their own partisan assumptions, unproven speculation and conspiracy theories in the days since the shooting.
Some Republicans have criticized Democrats for calling Mr. Trump a threat to democracy. Democrats, meanwhile, have pointed to Crooks’s Republican registration and Mr. Trump’s long history of provocative rhetoric, including his continued praise of the Jan. 6 rioters.
Access to the Crooks’ house remains blocked by yellow police tape. Officers are monitoring the premises and preventing journalists from approaching.
