This is the best summary I could come up with:
A neighbor of the 20-year-old who tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump said there have been pro-Trump signs on display in the yard of his family’s home.
Authorities identified Thomas Matthew Crooks as the gunman who opened fired from a rooftop as the former president spoke at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.
He was registered as a Republican voter in Pennsylvania, but records show he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on January 20, 2021—the day President Joe Biden was sworn into office.
A neighbor in Bethel Park, the Pittsburgh suburb where Crooks lived, said they saw pro-Trump signs in the family’s yard as recently as a few months ago.
Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022 and worked as a dietary aide at a nursing home less than a mile from his family’s house.
His father Matthew Crooks told CNN late on Saturday that he was trying to figure out “what the hell is going on” and would not speak publicly about his son until after he talked to law enforcement.
The original article contains 416 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 57%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This guy looks like a dorkier HP Lovecraft
Also
there have been pro-Trump signs on display in the yard of his family’s home.
Is a much different message than “signs in his yard.” Don’t worry though, I’m sure all of the kid’s life is being scrubbed by every agency in America and in sixty years we’ll know why he really did it.
Coming into this comment thread relatively late, but I briefly wondered after reading the headline if this was a rebellion against the views his family instilled in him.
Obviously, it’s a heck of a rebellion if that idea holds even an ounce of water, but I could see rebelling against parents, coupled with the existential frustration that most folks feel about the current political situation, paired with the inexperience/poor decision making of youth, or even the beginnings of schizophrenia leading down this path.
Definitely filing that line of thought into the “complete speculation, and almost certainly not what really happened” bin, though.
The more we know, the more this looks to me like a suicide by cop that wanted (and failed) to leave a huge thing done so people remembered him.
Which is definitely why the media is posting his picture and personal details everywhere right? To make sure other people aren’t persuaded to seek fame in the same way.
The guy tried (and almost managed) to kill an ex-president and candidate for a second term. Of course the media is going to cover all the shit they can. It gives them clicks and that’s all that matter.
On the other handl, apparently, the guy had some mental health issues was bullied and honestly, what other outcome can you expect if not a very fast death when you try to do what he did in the way he did it?
Either he was out of his mind and was completely delusional, or was trying to leave the world with a huge kill in his name to be remembered.
Edit: typo
I absolutely agree, but I think it’s important to neither glorify nor demonize the attacker. This isn’t a route we should keep open to gain fame/infamy.
If there’s one guarantee in this world, it’s that shooting someplace up will always get your name in the news.
Although in the US it’s so common you’ll be forgotten in days unless the target is somebody famous.
Here is my irresponsible speculation: kid did it to get back at his dad. Dad was a republican flying trump signs in the yard, mom is registered democratic. Kid grows up wearing hunting outfits to school, trying to get on the shooting team, getting bullied (even after that time he tried to fit in by getting on the antitrump bandwagon following j6), trying to be the version of manliness his conservative father believes in, seaking his father’s approval, and paying the price socially with his peers. But as much as he tries, and fails, to get dad’s approval, mom is always there for him. Mom is a dem, probably secretly, with dad forcing strict “traditional” family roles (hence the signs in the yard, mom probably didn’t agree with but was powerless to stop). Kid seems to fit the stereotype of young man, bullied in school, working a dead end job, few if any friends, no future to speak of, just generally mentally unstable, ripe for suicide by cop alreadt. Then something happens, dad hits mom, dad cheats on mom, dad screams at kid calling him a loser and also yells at mom for rasing a mommas boy, something like that. Kid snaps, betrayed by his father again, but also protective of his mom who was always there for him. Kid decides rather than killing his dad (either because of unshakable childhood fear, or a desire to cause more pain to his father then death would afford), he would kill something his dad loved more than anything, more than his dad loved his mom, and especially more than his dad loved him. He’d kill dad’s god king Trump, and go out along with him. His dad would lose his hero, and the world would know his dad was responsible because he failed as a father, and thus his father would be the greatest traitor to the Maga movement ever.
I base this on no evidence other than the couple of facts we know about voter registrations and the yard signs and the like. Again this is just my speculation, which it is completely irresponsible to engage in right now (fun though!).
really thought you were going to end that with the source of the truma being because in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell.
the media:
we’ll stop naming school shooters due to copycat killers
also the media:
his name was thomas matthew and here’s a 90 minute special about his preferred breakfast cereal
👀 👀 👀
The media is not one thing. Media is plural. Good luck getting “the media” to agree on anything.
They sure can agree on a few things:
- Ads make money.
- More ads make more money.
- Money.
- More money.
- 🦀 money money money 🦀
If this encourages these psychos to stop shooting children and shoot politicians instead, I’ll take that trade.
I’ll say the name of anyone that takes a shot at a fascist, for any reason. Even being the wrong kind of fascist.
you know what, fuck yeah. People can only afford so many bullets these days, so just like Halloween warnings avout drugs and the reality of who the fuck would waste their hard earned drug money on random kids, why should anyone waste bullet money on them either. shoot a politician, save a child.
