20-year-old shooter who tried to kill Trump — a profile

WASHINGTON: Law enforcement authorities have identified the man who made an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

The FBI said the shooter, who is dead, was identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. The gunman was immediately “neutralized” by the Secret Service, chief of communications Anthony Guglielmi said.

Crooks used a semiautomatic rifle, three senior US law enforcement officials said, based on what was found at the scene. Investigators are looking into whether the gun used by the shooter belonged to his dad and had been purchased legally, according to two senior law enforcement officials.

Crooks is believed to have fired eight shots before he was taken down, said an official citing preliminary findings. Multiple suspicious canisters or containers were found in Crooks’ vehicle but it’s unclear if they were functional as incendiary or explosive devices, two officials said.

Crooks’ family is cooperating with investigators, but his motive remains unclear, according to a senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the matter. Bethel Park is a predominantly white, relatively well-to-do city in the southern reaches of greater Pittsburgh. The site of the rally, Butler, is about an hour’s drive north of Pittsburgh.

Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022. He was among more than a dozen students who received a National Math & Science Initiative Star Award that year, according to a story in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. A high school classmate, Jason Kohler, 21, said Crooks was a “loner” who was “bullied so much in high school”.

Crooks would regularly wear hunting outfits and was made fun of for the way he dressed, Kohler said. “He would sit alone at lunch. He was just the outcast,” Kohler added. “It’s honestly kind of sad.”

Michael Dudjak, 20, who went to school with Crooks for most of his life, recalled him as a relatively reserved and quiet classmate. He didn’t hear or see Crooks being actively bullied by their peers, but Crooks was “on his own a lot,” Dudjak said.

He couldn’t recall Crooks ever being outspoken about politics or very active on social media. Dudjak was with some friends and acquaintances from high school on Saturday night when he learned that Crooks was the shooter.

They were all “in shock” and “couldn’t fathom” the news, Dudjak said. “It’s definitely terrifying for someone you went to school with to commit such a heinous act... that’s the craziest thing about it when it entered my brain,” Dudjak said. “You were in the same class as this person two years ago.” A man who lives on Crooks’ street said he was shocked to wake up to the news that a neighbor was responsible for the assassination attempt. “It’s absolutely nuts,” said the man, 39-year-old Andrew Blanco.

Blanco said most people on the block are friendly but he rarely saw or spoke to anyone at Crooks’ home.