Thomas Crooks seemed like a typical young man from suburban Pittsburgh. He was smart and quiet, built computers, and won honors at school.
Lots of interesting nuggets about the Trump shooter's life in this new piecehttps://t.co/2e63Z1s1Ca pic.twitter.com/LKGJUVV3XP
— Aric Toler (@AricToler) July 19, 2024
He worked at a nursing home, serving meals and washing dishes. But last week, the 20-year-old engineering sciences graduate shocked his community. He tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a rally in western Pennsylvania.
As terrorism researcher says, “Stuff happens and we don’t know why.” With no motive for events like Trump shooting, “people fill the void with their own conspiracy theories that increase polarization and decrease trust in institutions.” Real life is not TV https://t.co/Bbeyd1TN88
— Barb McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) July 20, 2024
Crooks opened fire, injuring Trump and wounding three others. One person died. Secret Service officers then killed Crooks.
New WaPo piece unpacks what it might mean if we never find assassination plot motive. Featuring @NCITE_COE work on construct of “managed ecosystems” from @dr_samhunter’s lab: https://t.co/jvM2cHHqfV
— Gina Ligon (@ginaligon) July 20, 2024
Investigators are trying to figure out why Crooks did it. They have done over 200 interviews. They have looked at his phone and internet history.
We are learning a more, day by day, about the 20-year-old who tried to kill Trump. In some ways, he mirrors the dark, familiar profile of young mass shooters, in other ways not.
From @ESCochrane @SteveEder @WRashbaum @amyjharris @jackhealyNYT and me.https://t.co/hOM0VBgZI9
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) July 20, 2024
So far, his ideology and motives are unclear. People who knew Crooks are confused. Former classmates, teachers, and neighbors remember him as an awkward but bright teen.
He loved computers and video games. They can’t believe he became a gunman who climbed on a roof to shoot at the ex-president. “That’s where I’m struggling,” said Xavier Harmon, Crooks’ former computer technology teacher.
“I’ve looked at horrific pictures of an individual that I stood six inches away from, shaking his hand, calling on him in class.”
Crooks lived nearly his whole life in Bethel Park. It’s a mostly white town of about 32,000 people. The community is still in shock.
They want to know how an honor student turned into an assassin. Crooks was a loner who liked guns. But he didn’t talk much about politics.
This has left authorities puzzled about his motive. They think he may have just wanted to attack a famous target close to him, rather than for political reasons. Even though he didn’t get his primary target, the shooter was successful in a lot of ways,” one federal official said.
He got closer to doing something no one has done in decades.” That means trying to kill a presidential candidate. Crooks also looked up information about another mass shooter. In 2021, Ethan Crumbley killed four classmates at a Michigan high school.
Experts say mass shooters often research others they want to copy. They aim to do something even bigger.
Former honor student shocks community
But Crooks was different from a typical mass shooter in some ways. He seemed to target Trump specifically. He didn’t try to kill as many people as possible.
And he had less firepower than many mass shooters, who often carry several guns and wear body armor. “It didn’t look to me like he was ready for an assault,” said Kathleen Puckett, a former FBI behavioral analyst. “It looked to me like he was taking a window that he saw a vulnerability in where he felt that he was unobserved to the extent he could get off some critical shots.”
Mass shooters usually leave behind writings that explain their attacks.
But authorities have found few clues so far in Crooks’ bedroom or online. This is frustrating for experts trying to understand his mindset. “This may be a situation where the more we know, the less we understand about the exact reason why,” said Juliette Kayyem, a former Homeland Security official.
An expert on extremism thinks Crooks likely wanted attention and fame, not political change. Jytte Klausen is a professor at Brandeis University. She has studied terrorist networks and violent extremism for 20 years.
“He wanted to become somebody – he wanted to make a mark,” Klausen said about Crooks. “Based on what we know about his search history, there’s no indication he wanted to impact the election.”
Klausen said Crooks was probably “acting out a fantasy of himself as being a big man, showing the world what he can do and getting attention.” She noted that Crooks didn’t leave a manifesto, which is more common for school shooters than political terrorists. Crooks used a gaming platform that had a game about killing a president.
This blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, Klausen said. On the platform Steam, Crooks wrote: “July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds.”
It’s not clear if Crooks planned to survive the attack. “One of the interesting things about these types of shooters is that they can be incredibly rational about planning out the scenario for how they’re going to carry out the attack but very irrational about the consequences,” Klausen explained.
“He may have thought he could walk away and do something again.”
Crooks had made bombs, which Klausen said usually means the attacker doesn’t intend to die. “Crooks could easily have become a mass killer – the Secret Service snipers prevented that,” she noted. At age 20, Crooks fits the pattern of younger attackers having poor judgment about risks.
Young attackers have often faced some trauma. But Crooks’ high school denied he was bullied. A closer look at Crooks’ home life showed his mother was blind and allegedly hoarded things.
His parents didn’t notice when explosive parts were delivered to their house. “I’m very reluctant to throw the parents under the bus here, but you don’t get hazardous materials delivered to your doorstep without noticing,” Klausen said. Crooks was known to have accounts on the gaming platforms Steam and Discord.
But he wasn’t very active on them. Some classmates said he loved computers and gaming. Teachers said he built computers and liked coding.
Klausen warned that too much gaming online can make it hard for young people to tell reality from fantasy. “It’s not a predictor, but it’s a risk factor – one of the markers indicating the need to pay attention to a young person,” she said.
