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From Honor Student to the Gunman Who Tried to Kill Donald Trump
The New York Times | Yahoo ^ | July 20, 2024 | By Emily Cochrane

Posted on 07/20/2024 12:51:34 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

BETHEL PARK, Pa. — For Thomas Crooks, the suburban Pittsburgh nursing home where he served meals and washed dishes for $16 an hour was another solitary corner of a nearly invisible life. He was polite but distant, a former co-worker said, ate lunch alone in the break room and rarely spoke with anyone.

But as western Pennsylvania geared up last week for the boisterous spectacle of hosting a rally for former President Donald Trump, Crooks approached his bosses with a request, law enforcement officials said: He wanted to take Saturday off.

He told them he had something important to do.

It was one of the few hints to emerge so far that the 20-year-old engineering sciences graduate was planning to become a political assassin. A week after Crooks opened fire at the rally and was killed by the Secret Service, his ideology and motives remain a vexing question for investigators and the people who crossed paths with him.

In dozens of interviews, former classmates, teachers and neighbors said they still could not square their memories of Crooks — an awkward, intelligent teenager who liked to tinker with computers and spent his weekends playing video games — with the image of the stringy-haired gunman at the rally, armed with his father’s AR-15-style rifle as he clambered onto a rooftop and took aim at the former president.

(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: assassinationplots; bewaretheengineers; election2024; engineer; failedassassin; geek; nerd; pittsburgh; thomascrook; thomasmatthewcrooks; trump; uofpittsburgh
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1 posted on 07/20/2024 12:51:34 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

He was such a good boy.

Till he fell for the false recruitment tactics of FedZilla.


2 posted on 07/20/2024 12:55:38 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd (A truth that's told with bad intent, Beats all the lies you can invent ~ Wm. Blake)
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To: Responsibility2nd

Ring...ring...”Hello”

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep...”


3 posted on 07/20/2024 12:59:54 PM PDT by Deo volente ("When we see the image of a baby in the womb, we glimpse the majesty of God's creation." Pres. Trump)
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The NYT clearly in possession of narrative guidance


4 posted on 07/20/2024 1:05:56 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist! )
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-rally-gunman-identified/
[The University of Pittsburgh confirmed Monday that Crooks had been admitted for the fall semester to study mechanical engineering, but according to a statement from the school, he informed the university in March he had decided not to attend.]


5 posted on 07/20/2024 1:07:32 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room)
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To: Zhang Fei
he informed the university in March he had decided not to attend.

Now confirmed.

6 posted on 07/20/2024 1:10:51 PM PDT by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: Jim W N

Have the bullets used been recovered and studied? Wouldn’t that indicate if there was more than one shooter as some have theorized?


7 posted on 07/20/2024 1:17:17 PM PDT by ActresponsiblyinVA
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

People with their stupid impressions of the killer not being such a bad guy.

True story. When my wife and I were among the dozens of people at a small Florida beach a white gunman shot at people and held off deputies by threatening us all with a handgun. 1998.
I had my wife slide under a car and two younger guys and I plotted if he came to the left we would divide up roles to tackle him. Strangely, I wasn’t afraid. Maybe distancing by my brain. My wife said “What good is it going to be to me if you’re killed.” I said “I don’t intend to get killed.”

The gunman went the other way, grabbed a man in his 60s as his wife screamed repeatedly in fear and walked out slowly to the parking lot with officers standing down. He made the man drive him away. One deputy about five feet away said “That’s our mistake. We shouldn’t let him leave with the hostage.”

Later he was caught while holding a couple in a house. His record was using that same gun to shoot an older woman in the forehead. She had been kind enough to hire him for odd jobs. He and his accomplice thought she must have a lot of money for owning a business so they killed her at home. Didn’t think of the fact she kept her money in a bank and only had a few dollars at home.
Accomplice said “I seen him aim at her and he was smiling. He always breathed through his teeth and laughed like that. He shot her right in the head.”

The ending. I was at the Sarasota opera house that night and two Elizabeth Warren type Karens were just behind me. “I think the cops had the wrong idea about him. The two people he held at the house said he was nice to them the whole time. He didn’t do anything to them.”

Never trust a Dem.

https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1998/10/17/standoff-ends-peacefully/


8 posted on 07/20/2024 1:19:52 PM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

If he was Black this would include a picture of him in his confirmation gown.


9 posted on 07/20/2024 1:20:54 PM PDT by jmaroneps37 (Freedom is never free. It must be won rewon and jealously guarded.)
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To: ActresponsiblyinVA

Yes but everybody loves a multi-shooter conspiracy. That would spoil their fun.


10 posted on 07/20/2024 1:22:27 PM PDT by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: Zhang Fei

They don’t have internet where he knew he was going


11 posted on 07/20/2024 1:22:33 PM PDT by jmaroneps37 (Freedom is never free. It must be won rewon and jealously guarded.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

So Crooks was just too smart for his own darn good.


12 posted on 07/20/2024 1:26:24 PM PDT by TChad
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To: ActresponsiblyinVA

You’re not allowed to see that evidence


13 posted on 07/20/2024 1:46:24 PM PDT by campaignPete R-CT (I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go ...)
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To: ActresponsiblyinVA

Great question!


14 posted on 07/20/2024 1:49:44 PM PDT by BradyLS (DO NOT FEED THE BEARS!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
Out of India... The UNsuspected

https://www.caclubindia.com/assets/maxwell-yearick/

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/trump-shooters-trolling-accounts-on-the-rise-while-fbi-struggles-with-thomas-crooks-limited-digital-footprint-101721216208424.html

15 posted on 07/20/2024 2:00:13 PM PDT by MurrietaMadman (The Gates of hell shall not prevail against you)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Was he groomed on discord? Some gamer site like the Uvalde murderer? I wonder who paid for all his nice toys? Gotta hand it to our Government…they’re good at grooming kids.


16 posted on 07/20/2024 2:18:35 PM PDT by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
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To: Jim W N

This, IMO, is a good interview with a knowledgeable SS agent.

Mainly points out the incompetence of SS as well as role of all LE and agencies.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=secret+service%3A+counter


17 posted on 07/20/2024 2:40:42 PM PDT by Karoo
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To: Karoo

Government mandated DEI is destroying our country and the people in it.

FREEDOM not DEI is what Makes and Will Make America Great Again


18 posted on 07/20/2024 3:11:33 PM PDT by Jim W N (MAGA by restoring the Gospel of the Grace of Christ (Jude 3) and our Free Constitutional Republic!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

.. from government public school student?


19 posted on 07/20/2024 3:19:43 PM PDT by Varsity Flight ( "War by 🙏 the prophesies set before you." I Timothy 1:18. Nazarite warriors. 10.5.6.5 These Days)
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To: Jim W N
This young 20 yr. old man isn't hard to figure out at all....
Basically rejected in school, though awarded at graduation for 'excelling academically'.... and then acquires an associates degree in 'engineering science'....he ends up feeding and washing dishes for the elderly,....... plus his love for the rifle range who then kick him out and tell him not to come back......so where's his satisfaction for all his hard work?

This is a young man who's going to show everybody he's significant....at all cost as he's got nothing to loose in his mind....just as he wrote on the game site....”July 13th my ‘Premiere’ ..watch it unfold.”

20 posted on 07/20/2024 3:53:52 PM PDT by caww (O death, when you seized my Lord, you lost your grip on me......)
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