Thomas Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School on a sunny June day in 2022. Two years later, he travelled an hour from his home in Pennsylvania, climbed on to a rooftop and fired several shots at Donald Trump, minutes into the former president’s speech at a campaign rally.
Trump, who suffered a minor injury to his ear, was quickly whisked away by security, as US Secret Service agents killed the 20-year-old gunman. The attack on Saturday left a man dead and two others critically injured.
The attempted assassination has reverberated throughout the US and has further strained what has become one of the most polarising presidential elections in the country’s history.
On Sunday the small Pennsylvania community of Bethel Park was left puzzling over the motives of a young neighbour who was a registered Republican but had once donated to Democratic causes.
Crooks lived with his parents in Bethel Park, according to neighbours in this well-heeled suburb south of Pittsburgh. Trump signs dot manicured front lawns across the tree-lined borough, often alongside “thin blue line” American flags. The flags demonstrate support for law enforcement, but have become controversial after being wielded by Trump supporters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in a bid to stop the certification of Biden’s win in the 2020 presidential polls. Some yard signs stressing “unity” also feature LGBT and trans pride flags.
A section of the road on which Crooks lived was cordoned off on Sunday, with state troopers preventing the press from getting too close. Police and other law enforcement came and went; some were seen carrying boxes out of the family’s home.
Several neighbours said they had been shocked by the developments but did not know the family or the alleged shooter. “Nobody knows him around here,” said one man, who asked not to be named.
Another woman, a retired local teacher, said she was “praying for the family” and the country, and lamented that divisive politics had infiltrated her genteel neighbourhood. “We always used to get along,” she said.
The local community is not overtly political, said Jeffrey, a neighbour who asked only to be identified by his first name, “and you don’t have to worry about people shouting what they think”.
Others talked of a bomb scare in the early hours of the morning following the shooting, claiming the houses surrounding Crooks’ were told of the threat. A bomb squad truck arrived outside Crooks’ house in the middle of the day on Sunday.
The nature of the alleged alarm was not clear, however. US media was reporting Sunday that explosive devices were found in Crooks’ car, and possibly in his house. The FBI, which is leading the probe into Trump’s shooting, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Bethel Park police department redirected queries to the FBI.
Crooks was a dietary aide at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre. Marcie Grimm, the local nursing home’s administrator, in a statement said: “We are shocked and saddened to learn of his involvement as Thomas Matthew Crooks performed his job without concern and his background check was clean.”
The Bethel Park school district in a statement expressed “its sincere wishes for a speedy and full recovery” for Trump and for the rallygoers. “We offer special condolences to the family of at least one attendee who was killed,” it said, adding it was fully co-operating with the law enforcement probe.
Journalists at CNN reported they had spoken to Crooks’ father late on Saturday night, who reportedly said he was trying to figure out “what the hell is going on” but would “wait until I talk to law enforcement” before speaking about the incident.
“From the little we know about the shooter and the weapon, it was likely purchased legally and outfitted for accuracy at long distance,” said Jeffrey Fagan, professor at Columbia Law School.
“We need to know more about the shooter’s background, especially if he had a criminal record or a history of mental illness or drug addiction that would have prohibited him from passing the required background check to purchase the weapon”.
Eighteen-year old Abdulloh Rakhmatoz, who rode the bus to school with Crooks, remembered him as “very quiet but when he did talk he was nice.”
“He was just really shy”, Rakhmatoz said.
Authorities have yet to determine a motive and are investigating whether Crooks acted alone.
The incident has once again put a spotlight on the fraught guns debate in a country where shootings are the chief cause of death among American youth, as firearm regulation continues to be eased.
The attempted assassination came a month after the US Supreme Court dealt the latest blow to efforts to rein in firearms by overturning a Trump-era ban on “bump stocks”, a device that greatly increases the firepower of ordinary rifles. The measure had been implemented after a mass shooting in Las Vegas, the deadliest in modern US history.
The high court’s conservative majority held that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives exceeded its authority in implementing the rule. But Sonia Sotomayor, the justice who led the liberal dissent, warned that the court’s ruling would have “deadly consequences”.
Back in Bethel Park, the community on Sunday was still coming to terms with the latest act of gun violence, one that has thrust a corner of American suburbia into the heart of the 2024 presidential elections. “It’s shocking, it’s a little scary,” said Jeffrey, the neighbour. “You never know what people are thinking”.
