Thomas Matthew Crooks: The registered Republican and gun lover who shot Trump

There's a political organizer with the same name a few counties over. In 2021 the shooter was 17, and not legally able to donate in PA.

I had a friend that was a die hard Bernie Sanders fan until Trump became relevant. He turned to a qanon following psycho that pushed away everyone close to him.

So a patriot?

Speaking of finances, I'd like to know how much he lost to trumps scams. I'm just impatient, that will (or won't) be discovered in the investigation

Discord is so obvious, yet "oh noes china tik tok meta insta!!"

Who on earth thinks discord is secure? Convenient af, though

"Who is this 4Chan?"

Wait, there's an age requirement for donating?

Sure, at first, they're just slamming their laptops shut to write morse code... but how long until it's a cell door that they're slamming? It's a slippery slope.

"Oh, so there are even less Republicans than reported?"

"Their rhetoric is convincing even Republicans! They're clearly evil!"

Ah, a very selective recognition of stochastic terrorism. Except it doesn't quite fit because calling Repubs fascist isn't a lie.

It sure is easier to convince Repubs to shoot since they are already brainwashed. Too bad it is hard to direct them at people who deserve it instead of shoppers and nightclub attendees.

Couldn't agree more. Let's make the adult age a nice even 20 and call it a day.

(Or ideally 25 if you want to be more realistic about it, given the rate that people mature at, but I have a feeling that would be extremely unpopular.)

You can legally rent a car at 18, it’s just that no company wants to rent to you.

Yeah, and I generally think it should be 18. Some rights should come sooner such as medical autonomy and Romeo and Juliet style consent, but once you hit the age of adulthood you’re legally an adult

And be president. How about 35 for the adulthood age?

Dudes just ignoring the shoes thrown at Bush

Valid, I'm sure. Hinkley was the last that made anytype of major news, unless I'm mistaken.

With enough time you can saw through most of the commercially available ones.

This is technically true but with the amount of time and effort it takes to get through a good portion of the safes I've seen, it would honestly be easier to go and steal one from some schmuck with a truck gun or whatever that's insecurely, uhhh, secured.

There are insurance/registration issues that can address that. Of course there endless possible hypotheticals. I'm personally in favor of some sort of "drivers license" equivalent for guns.

But a 21 year old age limit almost certainly would have prevented Uvalde.

Do we know in this case whether or not the gun was even kept in a safe?

False dichotomy.

Every other country the world over is trying to reduce the number of guns around and improve mental health.

Why not both? Tackle guns with more control and better mental health care and education.

Disarming bad guys shouldn't be the goal. Much like smoking in the UK. You wont stop all the older generationa from smoking but you can make it illegal for all the younger generations and over a longer peeiod of time theres no kne left that smokes.

If you tackle guns now and provide greater control over ownership whilst simultaneously educating younger people you will effectively prevent this sort of crim in the future.

At least thats my view.

Apparently the shooter didn't have any social media accounts.

That's how they caught the golden state killer. I think it was his niece submitted a DNA sample and it popped up as related to the unknown sample they had.

I once read an expert on this and it seems they only need a very low amount of DNA samples (like 0.1% of the population) in the database to be able to narrow down any search to the sibling level.

And traditional detective work can then figure out which sibling, if there are multiple.

So yeah, the cat is out of the bag with this one.

It was the only reliable way to find who the biological parents of my father were, so yeah.

Yes all these rocks and minerals need to be watched closely

Lol

I think you mean genealogy maybe?

Because it’s potentially indicative of a national database of everyone’s DNA, rather than just the criminal database, which would be (and perhaps is) a privacy nightmare

Privacy minded people don’t like the idea of easily accessible geology databases. This was a good use of that technology, but people worry about that technology be used for evil. Health insurance companies reflagging you, or much worse.

When you're rooting for a conspiracy all new info cam be read as a red flag if you're creative and paranoid enough.

Yeah this seems obvious to me. “Can we swab your cheek to confirm if this is your son?” What parent wouldn’t want to know if their kid was dead or alive?

I didn't realize how sketchy that all was. The form mentions genetic testing for conditions, but that was just like 2 of the spots. They did like 6 to a tiny newborn. I'd recommend other parents to object.

And I'm going to submit the destruction forms for my kids and myself.

Is it possible there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll?

I mean, shrapnel can also ricochet, but I'm not sure what would've caused that in the immediate area around him really since there wasn't really much behind him. The world may never know.

Paywalled so can't see what they say, but didn't he donate in Jan 2021? He would have been 17, and thus prior to his registration to vote as a Republican.

The timeline's not incompatible with him being a never trump Republican.

They don't. They have a shoot first, ask questions later mandate. There was retired USSS basically saying they're given the discretion.

Nobody would be screaming for an agents head if they offed someone with a gun (bb gun or not) setting up on a roof with siteline to a president at a campaign event.

The distances they're likely dealing with are very likely a significant factor. Being that far away, optics can only do so much to show you what is happening.

It's hard to tell if it's a rifle or not, and if the rifle is a real gun or something like Airsoft or a pellet gun or something that doesn't actually pose any threat.

With the distance (or even up close) you can't really be picky about where you're aiming, you're just trying to hit something, so shots are generally towards the chest where you're most likely to hit, unfortunately shooting someone in the chest has the largest chance to be fatal, so you basically have to shoot to kill.

Killing someone for holding what looks like, but cannot be confirmed as a gun, on a building that's outside of your protection zone, is a tough call. Once a shot rings out, the intention of the person and what they have is made very clear, and taking a shot at that point is valid and warranted.

First, I don't think that SS, or any agency, wants to end the life of someone who is not doing anything wrong and not posing a risk to anyone, so IMO, they all rightfully err on the side of caution until a threat is confirmed or very obvious.

I'm aware that the local PD confirmed the threat, but I would assume that due to bad/slow/complex inter-agency and inter-team communication, the message did not reach the sharpshooter team which ultimately took the guy out... At least it didn't reach them prior to when the shots were fired.

Knowing what I do about radio, communications and the methods by which information is transferred, the local PD officer likely radioed dispatch about it, where they faffed about trying to find how to contact the SS, ultimately they probably called someone in the SS, who relayed it to an on-site (or dispatch type) operator, likely sending it out on the wrong channel (sharp shooters are often on their own channel AFAIK), and it took so long for the information to reach the sharpshooter team that by the time they could have set up the shot, he was already firing at Trump. This is all conjecture and speculation based on my experience running communications for various events (I'm not security nor medical nor anything else, I'm part of a team brought in specifically to relay information between locations in real time). There's often a bit of a game of telephone happening, and the message is usually not clear getting to the final person.

In my experience I've had bad reports from random event goers that turn into nothing. Recently at an event I had a report of someone collapsed, vomiting, and needing medical. When I arrived, there was nobody there, myself and the medical staff were thoroughly confused. We asked around and apparently, they didn't collapse, they threw up a bit (probably alcohol related as there was alcohol at the event), then shuffled off by friends. We had no description of the person, nothing to go on at all on order to find them and confirm their condition, only a vague direction from the witnesses in trucks and tents nearby. We never found them, and the person who originally reported it disappeared into the crowd as quickly as they appeared. So we were left to wander around trying to find someone who looked like they had just thrown up in a crowd of people (likely around 200 or more). Another example was someone saying there was an injury, gave a location and myself and the medical team jumped into action. We went to the described location and nobody needed help nor had an inquiry. After canvassing around for about 3-4 minutes, we found them several hundred feet away, stationary, waiting for us to arrive, but in a completely different area.

My point is, getting accurate information across from those that need help to those that can help is a challenge because the simple game of telephone between the points is unreliable at best. If you're ever reporting anything, to anyone, please, for the love of everything, be specific and direct. Don't just point and say, "over there" because there's an entire world of stuff "over there". If you can cite a nearby address or landmark, do that, otherwise give a direction and your best estimate of distance. If it's a person or thing, do your best to describe the individual or object. Don't assume that the recipient knows anything about the area.

I love doing communications work for events, it's one of my favorite hobbies. However, people are garbage at telling me what they need and where. To be clear, my team often works with medical/security, and often we travel with them to give updates to the rest of the team as we go. We have people listening where their only job is to relay information and record it, similar to dispatch. So we put as much information as we can on the air. Radio calls travel at the speed of light, so we can often get information distributed more quickly than having to pick up your cellphone and calling someone. Our systems are also independent from the cellphone networks so if there's a problem with those services, we can still operate, giving us an advantage over other options, including stuff like GMRS/FRS which can be intercepted or interfered with by anyone with a handheld radio capable of using those channels. I know that the police, military, secret service, Airforce, etc, all have their own, independent, radio frequencies that do not overlap, so communication between agencies is usually dealt with separately from the radio. The best case is that one member of an agency is outfitted with a radio from the other service, so dispatch can call them directly to relay traffic. Behind that is that two dispatch operators are in constant communication, either by phone or by presence (being physically near eachother), but neither seems to be the case here. No matter what, it's still a game of telephone to get a message from one agency to another, or even from one field operator to another when they're on different channels, even within the same service/agency.

Why didn't they do anything? Maybe just thought no shooter would set up in plain sight like that.

All very weird.

Also incredibly sad.

Supposedly he actually hit the teleprompter and shards from that is what nicked Trump, so bro just missed entirely.

He was also not allowed to join his school's rifle club for being a hilariously bad shot...

I totally agree. That's not an easy shot to make, especially for someone who is not trained or experienced.

He came absurdly close to changing the course of history.

Bro did not make use Gyro controls. Sad!

lol:

Crooks tried out for his school’s rifle team but failed to make it because he was a “comically bad shot” and made jokes deemed inappropriate with firearms around, two former classmates told The New York Post.

He missed his target by close to 20ft, Jameson Murphy said.

“He tried out…and was such a comically bad shot he was unable to make the team and left after the first day,” he added.

I understand the injury to his ear was from shrapnel.

Is it even more common to being a republican and assassinating the leader of the party? He “said” he was republican, but the shooting at republicans say otherwise. And i trust actions more than words. And the actions don’t get any more louder than that. Besides it does not matter one iota what Party he is affiliated with. The only thing that matters is the disappointment that he missed

The last two points are very valid. It’s definitely something I considered, but this is such an F’d up timeline that I can’t help but be very pessimistic.

Just letting people know what a PA resident told me. Too bad people don’t want to hear it. If the guy was left leaning and registered as a Republican downvotes aren’t going to make it better.

Can you not change party affiliation at any time?

It's not for presidential races.

Its for state level races where you're in one of the 40+ states where it's a forgone conclusion what party wins the general.

So some people give up their presidential primary vote, to vote in the state level primaries for the party virtually guaranteed to win their state, then vote for their preferred party in the general even if their candidate won the primary for the other party

You might not think it's common, but it's the only way a lot of people's votes have any actual effect, so lots of people do it

Do you have anything where I can read up on that?

As for having an interest in guns, he owned an AR-15, so must have had some interest there.

He was wearing a Demolition Ranch Tshirt. It's a popular YouTube gun channel.

He was wearing a T-shirt from the merch store of the "Demolition Ranch" YouTube channel (huge gun channel) when he did this so yeah definitely

The address on the Act Blue donation is also listed as Pittsburgh, not Bethel Park.

.

Then it should not be "registered republican voter" - it should be "Republican party member"

Somone tries whitewash the party in that article

Yeah and in mine for instance most people don’t realize they’re registering. The party registration process is selecting which primary to vote in.