Details emerge about man who tried to assassinate Trump

YEREVAN, JULY 15, ARMENPRESS. The 20-year-old man who tried to assassinate former U.S. President Donald Trump first came to law enforcement’s attention at Saturday’s rally when spectators noticed him acting strangely outside the campaign event. The tip sparked a frantic search but officers were unable to find him before he managed to get on a roof, where he opened fire, the Associated Press reports.

In the wake of the shooting that killed one spectator, injured two others, investigators were hunting for any clues about what may have drove Thomas Matthew Crooks, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, to carry out the shocking attack. The FBI said they were investigating it as a potential act of domestic terrorism, but the absence of a clear ideological motive by the man shot dead by Secret Service led conspiracy theories to flourish, the report adds.

The FBI said it believes Crooks, who had bomb-making materials in the car he drove to the rally, acted alone. Investigators have found no threatening comments on social media accounts or ideological positions that could help explain what led him to target Trump.

Several rallygoers reported to local officers that Crooks was acting suspiciously and pacing near the magnetometers, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation. Officers were then told Crooks was climbing a ladder, the official said. Officers searched for him but were unable to find him before he made it to the roof, the official added.

Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe told the AP that a local officer climbed to the roof and encountered Crooks, who saw the officer and turned toward him just before the officer dropped down to safety. Slupe said the officer couldn’t have wielded his own gun under the circumstances. The officer retreated down the ladder, and Crooks quickly took a shot toward Trump, and that’s when Secret Service snipers shot him, according to two officials who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

The building from which the gunman opened fire, was outside the event,  less than 150 meters from where Trump was standing. He fired an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle, purchased by his father. 

Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022. He tried out for the school’s rifle team but was turned away because he was a bad shooter, said Frederick Mach, a current captain of the team who was a few years behind Crooks at the school, the AP adds.

Crooks worked at a nursing home as a dietary aide, a job that generally involves food preparation.

The assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump took place at a rally in Pennsylvania on June 13. The former president was seen with blood on his right ear and cheek as he was rushed off the stage.