Thomas Crooks: Lone nut or Self-hating Conservative?

Crooks
This is one of the most common pictures circulating of would-be assassin Thomas Crooks (2004-2024), the lone gunman who attempted to assassinate former president Donald Trump. It is a high school photo of him, probably age 16. Crooks was killed by counter-snipers at the Trump speech in Pennsylvania at age 20.

This article was originally written on the 16th of July, but due to technical issues, it was re-posted on the 19th.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the lone gunman who attempted to kill Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a bit of a computer nerd whose only link to social media was a Discord account, which he rarely used.

Thomas Crooks had no ID at the time of the shooting, and his real identity was determined post-mortem using a DNA sample from his blood.

In fact, unlike many people his age who typically place loads of information about themselves and their beliefs online, Crooks actually left very little information about himself at all. There are no links to terrorist groups we know about; no manifesto; no screeds against the establishment or consipiracy-theory mongering. In fact, not much at all outside of a photo of a pimple-faced kid whom everyone who knew him described as “nice”.  On his graduation in 2022, he was one of 20 recipients for a National Math and Science Initiative Star Award.

Crooks had a job as a kitchen worker (or “dietary aide”) at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehab Center. His employer told CNN that he performed his job without any concerns and that he had a clean background check. No one in his high school years or since, has ever known him to be political. Meanwhile, he had just graduated with high honors earning a diploma in engineering science at The Community College of Allegheny. The college had cited no record of misconduct, or of security-related matters, according to the BBC.

What seems to be at question here is how the Secret Service allowed such an amateurish assassination attempt to take place. According to former CIA security analyst Bob Ayers, the Secret Service “didn’t do a very good job” securing the area. The question of how it is possible for a young man to climb on top of a nearby building and start shooting without anyone stopping him has so far gone un-answered. “There should not have been any possibility for a person armed with a rifle to climb right up a building and shoot at the [former] president,” Ayers said.

It is certain that Crooks saw no military service, did not receive much formal training in the use of a rifle, and had no special skills in camouflage and making himself unseen. He simply drove up to a nearby building about 120 metres from where Trump was giving his speech, climbed up on the roof, and started shooting. After killing an attendee and wounding two others with stray bullets and another grazing Trump’s ear, Crooks himself was killed by sniper fire from the Secret Service.

His parents are both registered counsellors. As for political affiliations, his father is a registered Republican and his mother is a registered Democrat. Thomas himself was going to cast his first vote as an adult as a registered Republican this coming November, according to Reuters. Despite this, at age 17, he dontated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, which is a Democratic cause. Both contradictory facts have been declared “True” by a Snopes fact check.

The rifle used was his father’s  ArmaLite Rifle, known as an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, manufactured by Colt, purchased about six months ago, according to the BBC. This version of the AR-15 is considered a “civilian rifle”. The military version of the AR-15 is fully automatic. There is no suggegstion that his father had any idea as to what was about to take place on the day of the shooting. That day, Crooks purchased 50 rounds of ammunition, according to CBS News. On the day of the shooting, he wore a T-Shirt from the YouTube channel Demolition Ranch, a pro-gun channel with millions of subscribers. After Crooks was taken down, a search of his vehicle revealed unused explosive devices inside the car.

CBS reports that his father Matthew Crooks called law enforcement after the shooting, for reasons that were unclear. He is not yet speaking to reporters, saying that he wishes to talk to police first.

Police have been unable to uncover a motive, but according to interviews with his school cohorts, he was strong academically, a neat dresser, with a future ahead of  him. He was also known for being a member of a local gun club, but was never chosen for his high school varsity rifle team, known for being a “terrible” shooter. He argued staunchly on the Conservative side of his debating club, making it difficult for people who knew him to believe that he would either want, or be capable of, carrying out an assassination attempt on a Conservative candidate.

The Republican Party has opened a fundraising page to help the families of the victims of the shooting. It has so far raised around $350,000.