CNN
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In the 48 hours before he opened fire on former President Donald Trump, 20-year-old suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks made multiple stops in and around his hometown outside Pittsburgh.
Law enforcement officials told CNN that Crooks went to a shooting range where he is a member on Friday to practice his shooting skills. The next morning, Crooks went to Home Depot and bought a 5-foot ladder and 50 rounds of ammunition from the gun store, officials said.
Crooks then drove his Hyundai Sonata about an hour north to join a crowd of several thousand people at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. He parked his car outside the rally and hid an improvised explosive device wired to a hidden transmitter in the trunk, officials said. Investigators believe Crooks then used a ladder he had recently purchased to climb a nearby building and open fire on the former president.
Investigators are continuing to investigate a motive for the assassination attempt, are examining Crooks’ actions before the attack and are working to establish a timeline of his actions leading up to it.
But nearly 48 hours after the shooting, investigators are surprised at how few clues they have about Crooks’ thinking or motives. Despite successfully hacking into his phone, searching his computer, combing through his search history and bedroom, and questioning his family and friends, they have yet to find any evidence suggesting a political or ideological motive for the shooting, law enforcement sources told CNN.
Rather, the evidence they found seemed to point to typical online activity, such as an interest in computer coding and gaming, which raises further questions, the sources said.
Police sources said Crooks had a remote-controlled detonator attached to his body and a metal box containing explosives connected by wires to a receiver in the trunk of his car, suggesting the attack could have been even more destructive.
This suggests the shooter may have planned to set off a remote explosion, and investigators are considering the theory that he may have planned a distraction during the shooting.
It’s unclear how Crooks assembled the explosives found in his car, but investigators analyzed his online search history and found no evidence he had been researching how to make homemade explosives, police said.
The AR-style rifle that Crooks used to shoot Trump was legally purchased by his father, Matthew Crooks, and was one of more than 20 guns stored in Crooks’ home, according to Pennsylvania State Police records reviewed by investigators. All of the guns were purchased legally.
Police said the shooter and his father were members of the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club, about a 25-minute drive from the home, and enjoyed shooting together. Rob Bootey, an attorney for the club, confirmed in a statement that the Crooks brothers’ sons were members.
The club, which has about 2,000 members, includes a rifle range that’s roughly 200 yards long, according to a CNN analysis of satellite images — longer than the distance from which Crooks fired at former President Trump from a nearby rooftop. The range is tucked away on 180 wooded acres in the hills south of Pittsburgh.
“The club completely condemns the senseless act of violence that took place,” Bootey said, adding that “due to the ongoing law enforcement investigation we are unable to comment further on the matter.”
Crooks bought 50 rounds of ammunition at Allegheny Arms and Gun Works in his hometown of Bethel Park on the morning of the attack, a police official told CNN. “We are thankful that President Trump was not assassinated, and our hearts go out to all the victims of this horrific attack,” store owner Bruce Piendl said in a statement.
A spokesman for Home Depot, where Crooks bought the ladder, said in a statement: “We condemn the violence against former President Trump. Our thoughts are with former President Trump and the other victims and families of Saturday’s horrific attacks.”
It was unclear whether Crooks used the ammunition or ladder he purchased Saturday in that day’s attack.
Rebecca Droke/AFP/Getty Images
Police closed roads around the home of Thomas Matthew Crooks in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, on Monday as the FBI continues to investigate the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Matthew Crooks did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment on Sunday and Monday. On Saturday evening, before authorities publicly identified his son as involved in the attack, Crooks told CNN he was trying to figure out “what the hell is going on” but would “wait until I speak with police” before talking about his son.
FBI agents were able to gain access to Crooks’s cellphone, the bureau announced Monday afternoon. Investigators had hoped the breakthrough would shed light on why Crooks plotted to assassinate President Trump, but law enforcement officials said they are still struggling to answer that question.
The gunman’s parents, who have cooperated with police since the incident, told investigators that Crooks had no friends and no political leanings, law enforcement officials told CNN, but they did not seem to know much about Crooks’ life these days, police sources said.
CNN’s Isabel Chapman, Mylie de Puy Kamp, Kurt Devine, Kuhn Lahr, Jamiel Lynch, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Anna-Maya Rapado contributed reporting.
