On a sweltering Saturday in July 2024, the world watched as a 20-year-old climbed onto a roof in Butler, Pennsylvania, and changed American history in about six seconds. For months, everyone has been asking the same thing: Who was the Thomas Matthew Crooks, the kid who shot Trump, and why did he do it? Honestly, the answers aren't as simple as a 30-second news clip makes them out to be.
He wasn't some high-profile radical with a manifesto plastered across the internet. Instead, he was a quiet dietary aide from Bethel Park who liked coding and history. He lived with his parents. He worked at a nursing home. And then, he took a rifle to a campaign rally and opened fire.
The Life of Thomas Matthew Crooks: Before the Roof
Most people expect a villain to look the part. Crooks didn't. He was a "star student" who won a $500 award for math and science in high school. He graduated with high honors. He even appeared briefly in a BlackRock commercial filmed at his school, just sitting in the front of a classroom.
He was 20. Basically just a kid. Neighbors saw him as a "normal person," but former classmates paint a darker picture. They say he was bullied "every day." He’d wear hunting outfits or camouflage to class and sit alone at lunch. When you're a teenager, that kind of isolation leaves a mark. He tried out for the high school rifle team once. He was so bad at shooting that the coach told him not to come back. It’s a chilling detail considering what happened later.
By 2024, he’d graduated from the Community College of Allegheny County with an associate degree in engineering science. He was planning to head to a four-year university. On the surface, he was building a life. Underneath? He was building something else entirely.
A Furtive Double Life
The FBI eventually discovered that Crooks was living two lives. In one, he was an employee at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehab. In the other, he was researching the 1963 Kennedy assassination.
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- He searched for: "How far was Oswald from Kennedy?"
- He looked up the attempted assassination of the Slovakian Prime Minister.
- He ordered two gallons of nitromethane—fuel for explosives.
- He visited the site of the Butler rally a week before it happened.
His father, Matthew Crooks, later told investigators he noticed his son's mental health was slipping. He saw Thomas talking to himself and "dancing around his bedroom" late at night. The family had a history of mental health and addiction issues. But to the rest of the world, he was just a quiet guy who kept to himself.
The Timeline of the Butler Rally Shooting
The day of the shooting, July 13, 2024, started normally. Crooks told his coworkers he had "something important to do" and would be back the next day. He didn't come back.
He bought 50 rounds of ammunition and a five-foot ladder. By mid-afternoon, he was at the rally site. He didn't go through security. He stayed outside the perimeter. Around 3:50 p.m., he flew a drone over the area to scout the scene. Police actually spotted him 90 minutes before the shooting. A countersniper even took his picture because he looked suspicious carrying a golf rangefinder.
Eight Shots in Butler
At 6:06 p.m., Crooks climbed onto the roof of the AGR International building. It was less than 150 meters from the stage. That's a distance any decent marksman can hit. He used an AR-15-style rifle that his father had bought legally years prior and transferred to him in 2023.
He fired eight shots. One grazed Donald Trump’s upper right ear. Another killed Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old former fire chief who died protecting his family. Two other men, David Dutch and James Copenhaver, were critically injured.
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Seconds later, a Secret Service countersniper returned fire. Crooks was killed instantly. When they searched his body, they found a remote detonator. In his car, they found two improvised explosive devices. He wasn't just planning a shooting; he was planning a massacre.
The Motive Mystery: Why Him?
This is where it gets frustrating. There is no clear political "why."
He was a registered Republican. Yet, when he was 17, he donated $15 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a Democratic-aligned group. His parents were a mix too—his dad was a Libertarian, and his mom was a Democrat.
The FBI investigated for over a year, concluding their formal report in November 2025. They found over 25 social media accounts linked to him. Some comments were anti-immigrant and extreme. Others shifted from pro-Trump to anti-Trump. In April 2023, he wrote a school essay complaining that "divisive and incendiary campaigns are pulling the country apart."
Basically, he was a sponge for the anger of the era. He didn't seem to have a fixed ideology as much as he had an obsession with the act of violence itself. He searched for images of both Trump and Biden. He looked up the dates for both the RNC and the DNC. It seems he was looking for a target—any high-profile target—to make his "premiere," as he put it on a gaming platform.
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What Most People Get Wrong
You've probably heard a dozen conspiracy theories. Some say he was a professional. Others say he was "allowed" to do it. The reality, according to the final FBI findings, is much more mundane and tragic.
- The "Expert Marksman" Myth: He wasn't a pro. He was a kid who practiced at a local sportsmen's club about 40 times in a year.
- The "Lone Wolf" vs. "Conspirator": Despite massive searches of his 13 seized devices, no evidence of co-conspirators was ever found. He acted alone.
- The Mental Health Gap: While he had no documented history of institutionalization, his search history and his father’s testimony show a young man in a deep, dark spiral.
Moving Forward: Lessons from July 13
The shooting led to massive changes in how the Secret Service operates. It cost the director her job. It forced a rethink of how "outside perimeters" are managed at political events. But for the average person, the takeaway is about the invisible threats in our own communities.
If you want to understand the modern landscape of political violence, you have to look at the "loner" profile. It’s rarely the person screaming on the news. It’s often the person sitting quietly in the back of the room, scrolling through news sites until the "white noise" of political anger becomes a call to action.
To stay informed on the full scope of the investigation and the legislative changes that followed, you can review the Final Report of Findings and Recommendations issued by the Congressional Task Force. Understanding the security failures that day is just as important as understanding the boy on the roof.
Check the official FBI Vault for declassified documents regarding the Butler investigation if you want to see the raw digital footprints Crooks left behind. Staying grounded in the evidence is the only way to cut through the noise of 2026's political cycle.