The FBI said Monday that agents had accessed data from Crooks’ phone but were still determining why he opened fire at a pro-Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, wounding the former president and leaving one rally attendee dead and two others seriously injured. “Technical experts have successfully accessed Thomas Matthew Crooks’ phone and are continuing to analyze his electronic devices,” the FBI said in a statement.
Despite investigators having access to the shooter’s phone, family and friends, they have little information that could suggest a motive, according to people familiar with the investigation. They asked not to be identified because the investigation is ongoing. FBI officials have said there is no significant evidence of the shooter’s ideology. Investigators are interviewing all of the gunman’s acquaintances and examining the phones of some of his correspondents as they try to understand why he carried out such an attack.
President Biden and Vice President Harris were briefed in the Situation Room on Monday morning by senior law enforcement and security officials, including FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle was also there. The agency is facing questions about how Crooks managed to get to the roof of a building outside the rally’s security perimeter and open fire. Video taken shortly before the attack showed crowd members trying to alert police to the presence of a gunman.
Crooks, a native of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, graduated in May from Allegheny County Community College in western Pennsylvania with an associate’s degree in engineering science, according to a college spokesman.
“Like all Americans, we are shocked and saddened by the horrific events that occurred in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday,” the community college said in a statement. The college expressed relief that Trump is safe and offered its condolences to the family of Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old engineer and father of two who was killed.
Crooks plans to attend Robert Morris University this fall, a university spokesman said, and also works at a local nursing home.
At community college, Ms. Crooks joined a proof-based math book club that met weekly, according to a former classmate who asked not to be identified to protect her privacy. She was interested in math but preferred physics, the classmate said.
According to the classmate, Crooks was a reserved man who rarely discussed politics at school and was politically center-to-right. When the classmate heard Crooks was the killer, he texted him and said he was sorry someone was trying to impersonate him. He didn’t reply. The classmate later saw a photo of Crooks shot to death on the roof of a building.
“If I had to guess, I’d say this was suicide by cop,” said a classmate who considered Crooks a friend. “Tom was a good guy and I thought he was going to have a good life. I don’t know why he would do this. I worry about our democracy, I worry about his family, I worry about the Crooks family. I feel really bad for the firefighter’s family.”
Police and volunteer firefighters sealed off the entire neighborhood where the gunman lived on Sunday, but the area was reopened to the public on Monday. Crooks lived in a small, one-story brick house.
Liam Campbell, who lives across the street, said he and his family were woken from their beds at about midnight on Saturday by police who were evacuating neighbours over fears there might be explosives inside Crooks’ house.
“We were told there was equipment next door that needed to be removed and we all needed to leave the house and find shelter somewhere,” Campbell, 17, said, adding that he wasn’t allowed to return home until 10pm on Sunday.
Campbell said she rode the school bus with Crooks during her freshman year of high school, but that Crooks was “a bit of a loner” and didn’t seem to interact much with people at school or in the neighborhood, she said.
“He would walk around the neighborhood by himself,” Campbell said. “He was a quiet kid, a little strange. He would sit by himself. He wouldn’t talk to anybody. … But he seemed like a normal guy who didn’t like talking to people.”
FBI Special Agent Kevin Rojek said Crooks used a 5.56mm AR-style rifle, a common caliber for that type of weapon. Authorities said the gun was identified and tracked using records from a gun dealer that is no longer in business.
A person familiar with the investigation said Crooks bought 50 rounds of ammunition at a local gun store, Alleghany Arms, the morning of the shooting. The store’s owner and employees declined to comment when contacted by a Washington Post reporter on Monday morning, but issued a statement saying the store was “preferentially committed to cooperating with law enforcement in any way possible.”
“We are grateful that President Trump was not assassinated and our hearts and prayers go out to all of the victims of this horrific incident,” the statement said.
The shooter was a member of the Clairton Sportsman’s Club, a shooting club in Clairton, Pennsylvania, an attorney for the club confirmed Monday.
The club “unapologises for the senseless act of violence that took place on Saturday,” said Robert S. Boothe III, adding that the club “expresses its deepest condolences to Mr. Comperatore’s family and offers its prayers to all those injured, including our former president.”
Barrett and Hilton reported from Washington. Alice Crites, Monica Mathur, Razan Nakhlawi, Maria Luisa Paul, Aaron Shaffer, Perry Stein and Matt Beiser in Washington contributed to this report.
