The parents? A Libertarian father and a Democratic mother. Thomas Matthew Crooks' family lives in a relatively well-off suburb of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. The father, an adviser in a mental health service, owned the AR-15 that his son used to shoot at Donald Trump on July 13, 70 kilometers from the family home in Butler. Investigators do not yet know whether the 20-year-old had permission to borrow the weapon.
The high school? It clearly failed to integrate the lonely Crooks. According to several of his former classmates, he was constantly harassed by a group of students. He was studious and got good grades. When he graduated from high school in 2022, he was one of 20 young people to receive a prize ($500) in math and science. In his yearbook, he sported half-rimmed glasses. "He was very passionate about history," former classmate Summer Barkley told the BBC. A "quiet," "lonely" and "socially reserved" teenager, according to a high school student quoted by ABC News. To date, investigators have found no trace of him on Facebook or Instagram.
In the aftermath of the assassination attempt on Trump, the keys to understanding what might have prompted a 20-year-old man to attack the former president are still missing. According to Kevin Rojek, head of the investigation at the FBI's Pittsburgh office, he acted alone, as he most often was.
No political motivation has been established at this stage, according to the police. Crooks was registered as a Republican. In 2021, after Joe Biden's nomination, he contributed $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a voter turnout organization, through the ActBlue platform, which distributes funds to Democratic candidates. He had just graduated from community college in Allegheny County with a degree in engineering and had taken a job in the kitchen of a nursing home in Bethel Park. The home conducted a background check before hiring him.
He was shot by a Secret Service agent stationed on the roof of a barn, after successfully firing several shots, killing volunteer fire captain Corey Comperatore, 50, and wounding two others. Crooks was not carrying identification. Police identified him by the registration number on his AR-15.
Sporting long hair and a t-shirt that said "Demolition Ranch," the YouTube channel with millions of subscribers specializing in weapons and "demolition" (the destruction of objects using weapons or explosives). The young man had joined a local shooting club a year ago. Rudimentary explosives were found in his car.
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