The FBI identified the shooter, who is dead, as Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. A motive was not clear.

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.

Pennsylvania voter records listed a Thomas Matthew Crooks with the same address and birth date as a registered Republican, though it was not clear from the records when that was put in place.

You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
39 points

Feel like I’m gonna be posting this a lot today. Pennsylvania uses a closed party primary voting system. If you’re a liberal voting in the primaries, it made the most sense to register Republican in Pennsylvania to vote for someone like Nikki Haley if you despise Trump. Don’t want to say this is what happened, just that we shouldn’t jump to false flag conspiracy conclusions right now.

permalink
report
reply
21 points
*

I remember canvassing for Bernie back in 2016 and I knocked on a few doors of people who said “oh sorry, I switched to Republican to try to block Trump”. This is completely anecdotal evidence but it does happen. It’s rare though.

Edit: did a touch of cyber stalking… dad is a registered libertarian, mom is a democrat

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

Yeah, just one of those stupid games we have to play until we get with the times and implement a ranked choice voting system…

permalink
report
parent
reply
15 points
*

He was registered back in 2021. Not sure this has much bearing on the 2024 primaries. He could have been a right leaning person who didn’t like Trump. Those people exist. Basically, most libertarians.

permalink
report
parent
reply
5 points

Those people exist

can confirm; am a small government fiscal conservative who thinks gays are people.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

Hey you. I like you.

permalink
report
parent
reply
14 points

This is important to know, but at the same time, the majority of registered members in both parties in Pennsylvania voted for the front-runner, and given his youth (20), the primary was his first election involving presidential candidates.

We need to wait until the facts about him come out. Very little is currently known beyond the party registration and the YouTube gun channel.

permalink
report
parent
reply
7 points

This is the right answer. It is entirely possible and feasible to register as a party you don’t agree with for strategic reasons such as voting in primaries for important state offices etc. Millions of people do this across various states.

permalink
report
parent
reply
6 points

And just because he was registered as Republican, doesn’t mean he was necessarily a Trump supporter. After all, those Lincoln Project guys had to come from somewhere.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

He appears to be more of a libertarian.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

Sauce?

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

He was wearing a t-shirt of a far-right militia group and owned an AR rifle. Does that sound like a Democrat?

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
*
Deleted by creator
permalink
report
parent
reply

News

!news@lemmy.world

Create post

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

Community stats

  • 14K

    Monthly active users

  • 8.9K

    Posts

  • 162K

    Comments