Thomas Matthew Crooks practiced a 100-yard shot at the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club near Pittsburgh on Friday, July 12, 2024, a person at the gun club told investigators, according to NBC News.
Crooks opened fire about six minutes into Trump’s campaign speech at the Butler Farm Show grounds the following day.
He fired eight shots from an AR-15-style rifle, striking Trump in the ear, killing 50-year-old rallygoer Corey Comperatore, and critically injuring two other men, according to the report.
A Secret Service counter-sniper shot and killed Crooks on a rooftop outside the rally venue.
The newly disclosed records include roughly 600 pages of interviews with Crooks’ relatives, neighbors, teachers, classmates, and others who knew him. They also contain accounts from responding officers and information gathered during the federal investigation, NBC News reported.
The records show Crooks had become increasingly interested in firearms and long-range shooting during the years before the attack.
His father, Matthew Crooks, told investigators that his son developed the interest during the COVID-19 pandemic and was initially a “terrible” shot who could not hit a paper target, according to documents reviewed exclusively by the New York Post.
It took Crooks four or five years of practice to improve, his father reportedly told investigators. He eventually returned from shooting ranges with groupings from targets placed more than 100 yards away.
Crooks attended the Clairton club about once a week and took basic and intermediate handgun courses at Keystone Shooting Center outside Pittsburgh, according to the reports.
An employee at Keystone described Crooks as an “odd duck” and said he was “not someone they would want their daughter to spend time with,” investigators noted in the documents obtained by NBC News.
Crooks also purchased gun parts and equipment online using “Bob Dole” as a pseudonym, his father told investigators, according to the Post.
He once used a 3D printer to create a Glock 19-style handgun, the Post reported. His father fired one round from the homemade weapon but stopped Crooks from taking it to a range because he feared the frame could explode.
Despite Crooks’ growing interest in firearms, investigators found no clear political motive for the assassination attempt.
Crooks was a registered Republican who had donated $15 to the Democratic-aligned Progressive Turnout Project in 2021. Classmates said he was surprised by Trump’s 2016 election but generally discussed politics casually and criticized both major parties, according to NBC News.
“What makes Thomas ‘tic’ was his enjoyment in being ‘the smartest person in the room,’” investigators wrote.
Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School and later earned an associate degree from the Community College of Allegheny County. He planned to study engineering at Robert Morris University, according to the federal records.
Professors described him as a bright student who was a pleasure to have in class. Former classmates said he had few close friends, sometimes faced bullying, and tended to “shut down” in large groups or around authority figures.
Crooks worked as a dietary aide at Bethel Park Nursing and Rehab for about five years. Co-workers described him as an “odd, young kid” who was sweet, dependable, and “down to earth,” investigators wrote.
He was last seen at work on Friday, July 12. Crooks had requested the following day off but volunteered to return for a morning shift on Sunday, July 14, according to NBC News.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said investigators still have not determined why Crooks targeted Trump.
“We don’t know anything about the motivation [of] why [Crooks] wanted to kill Trump,” Grassley told NBC News.
NBC News noted that it had not independently verified the documents the Post cited concerning Crooks’ father. Grassley’s office showed those records to the newspaper in person but did not provide them to NBC News.
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