This November, Thomas Matthew Crooks was set to reach a political milestone: The first presidential election he was old enough to vote in.
A 20-year-old living in a crucial swing state, Crooks had already shown potential signs of an interest in politics, making a small political donation as a teenager and registering to vote just a week after he turned 18.
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But instead of casting his ballot this year, according to law enforcement, Crooks travelled an hour north of his home, climbed to the roof of a building, and opened fire on former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally — leaving him bloodied and coming inches away from killing him.
Crooks’ attack, which killed one spectator and critically injured two others, rocked American politics to its core, with elected officials from both sides of the aisle condemning the violence and warning of the dangers of the country’s deep polarisation.
So far, investigators have not found any evidence on social media or other writings by Crooks that might help identify his motive for the attempted assassination, law enforcement officials say.
But CNN interviews with more than a half-dozen former classmates and neighbours of Crooks painted him as quiet, with classmates remembering him as a good student and something of a misfit in high school.
And a review of public records suggests he may have had divergent political leanings, with Crooks registering to vote as a Republican but making a small donation to a Democratic-leaning group.
Crooks lived in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bethel Park, about an hour’s drive south of the Trump rally where law enforcement officials say he fired at the former president.
Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022, according to a local media report and a video of the school’s graduation ceremony.
Jason Kohler, 21, who went to the same high school, told CNN that Crooks was bullied by other students and seemed to be a loner.
Crooks had “no facial expression” when he walked through the school hallways, Kohler said.
“He wasn’t, like, with the clique, so he always had, I guess, a target on his back,” he said.
Another former student at the school, Sarah D’Angelo, remembered Crooks as “a quiet kid, not obviously political or violent in any way”.
She said the only time he spoke with her was when their class was waiting for their graduation ceremony to start.
A third classmate, who asked not to be named, said that Crooks was very smart, took honours classes, and was shy.
She said that he had a group of friends who were fairly conservative, some of whom would wear Trump hats.
“There was definitely chatter about him just looking a little different,” the classmate said of Crooks.
“Almost a retro nerd vibe.”
Crooks’ high school experience was interrupted by the pandemic, with students being out of school for months in 2020 and allowed to study remotely after that, the classmate said — and she added that she did not recall seeing him much during their sophomore or junior years.
When she heard that Crooks was identified as the Trump rally shooter, the classmate said: “I was just, like, shocked — I just couldn’t believe he did something that bold, considering he was such a quiet and kept-to-himself kind of person.”
FBI agents — like Crooks’ former classmates — were still trying to piece together his motives on Sunday.
Kevin Rojek, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Pittsburgh field office, said the FBI was working to gain access to Crooks’ phone.
Investigators believe he acted alone, Rojek said, adding that they had not seen any indication Crooks had mental health issues.
“We are working hard to determine the sequence of events related to the subject and his movements in the hours, days and weeks prior to the shooting,” Rojek said, while noting that “we’re still very early in this investigation.”
The gun Crooks used was a legally purchased AR-style weapon, Rojek confirmed.
According to law enforcement officials, the gun was traced to Crooks’ father, which helped to determine the gunman’s identity because he was not carrying identification.
When reached by CNN late Saturday night, Crooks’ father, Matthew Crooks, said he was trying to figure out “what the hell is going on” but would “wait until I talk to law enforcement” before speaking about his son.
He could not be reached again on Sunday.
Federal Election Commission records show that a donor listed as Thomas Crooks with the gunman’s street address gave $US15 to Progressive Turnout Project, a Democratic-aligned political action committee, on Inauguration Day in January 2021, when Crooks was 17.
A spokesperson for Progressive Turnout Project said in an email that the group had received the donation “in response to an email about tuning into the inauguration” and that “the email address associated with the contribution only made the one contribution and was unsubscribed from our lists two years ago.”
“We unequivocally condemn political violence in all of its forms, and we denounce anyone who chooses violence over peaceful political action,” the spokesperson wrote.
Later that year, a week after turning 18, Crooks registered to vote as a Republican, according to a listing in Pennsylvania’s voter database that matched his name, age and address.
Crooks only cast a ballot once, in the 2022 midterm general election, an Allegheny County spokesperson told CNN.
Both of Crooks’ parents worked as social workers, according to state licence records.
His father is registered to vote as a Libertarian and his mother is registered as a Democrat, state voter records show.
Crooks fired on Trump while perched on a nearby building rooftop outside the rally’s security perimeter, before being killed by Secret Service agents, according to law enforcement officials.
Law enforcement descended on Crooks’ family home on a quiet street in Bethel Park on Saturday night.
Explosive material was found in his residence, as well as in his car, law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation told CNN.
Colleagues ‘shocked and saddened’
A brief video posted on Facebook by Crooks’ school district in 2022 showed Crooks participating in a computer coding course and explaining a coding concept to a fellow student.
Crooks can also be spotted sitting at the front of an economics class in a TV ad for the investment firm BlackRock that was filmed at his high school.
The teachers featured in both the videos declined to comment.
A spokesperson for the social media platform Discord said in a statement that it had identified an account that appears to be linked to Crooks.
The account “was rarely utilised and we have found no evidence that it was used to plan this incident or discuss his political views,” the spokesperson wrote.
Crooks worked as a dietary aide at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre, a nursing home less than a mile from his family’s home, according to Marcie Grimm, the centre’s administrator.
“We are shocked and saddened to learn of his involvement, as Thomas Matthew Crooks performed his job without concern and his background check was clean,” Grimm said in a statement.
A colleague who worked with Crooks at the nursing home and who asked not to be named described him in an interview as “the sweetest guy”.
Just this week, the colleague said, the two of them worked together to find an easier way for nursing home residents to open ranch dressing packets, an act the colleague said was indicative of how caring Crooks was.
“These stupid ranch packets in the kitchen — no one can ever open them,” said the colleague, who also went to high school with Crooks.
“Earlier this week, he was helping me with a bunch of sick old ladies (to) put ranch on their salads.”
Crooks, the colleague said, never expressed political views at work and wasn’t “a radical”.
They added: “It’s hard seeing everything that’s going on online because he was a really, really good person that did a really bad thing, and I just wish I knew why.”
Bethel Park is a predominantly white suburb that is wealthier than the surrounding Pittsburgh metro area.
Dan Grzybek, a county council representative whose district includes Bethel Park, described it as politically mixed — according to county election records, President Joe Biden won the precinct that includes the Crooks’ house with just 52 per cent of the vote.
Grzybek, who lives nearby, said he had had a “very pleasant” conversation with the gunman’s parents while canvassing for votes before he was elected last year.
He described the community as “incredibly safe” and “close-knit,” and said he hoped that the shooting was not “what Bethel Park is remembered for”.
“All things like this do is increase the already extreme political polarisation we experience, and increase the risk of future violence in retaliation,” Grzybek said.
Andrew Bianco, who lives two houses down the street from the Crooks family, agreed that the area was politically diverse, with some residents flying Trump flags and others displaying Biden ones.
But he said he doesn’t remember ever seeing political signage outside the Crooks’ residence, and only saw the gunman’s father when he stepped outside to mow the lawn.
“If anything, you’d be like, ‘Does someone live there?’” Bianco said.
– with CNN’s Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Audrey Ash, Scott Glover, Allison Gordon, Holmes Lybrand, Sean Lyngaas, Evan Perez and Hannah Rabinowitz