Did Thomas Matthew Crooks, A Poor Marksman At School, Get Help In Trump Assassination Bid? Internet Abuzz – News18

Did the suspect who shot at former Donald US President Donald Trump act alone? Among the many questions surrounding the shooting at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally, this one, in particular, has intrigued a large number of users on social media, where conspiracy theories are spreading like wildfire after Sunday’s incident that has not only jolted the bitter political space in the US but has also sent shock waves around the world.

While concerns have been raised over how the suspected gunman — a 20-year-old who was taken down immediately after the incident — could get access to a rooftop from where he would have a direct shot at Trump, and questions have been asked if he planned (and almost executed) the entire operation alone, a section of netizens is convinced that Thomas Matthew Crooks did not act alone.

In an article about the shooter, news agency Reuters writes that the portrait pieced together so far of Crooks, a nursing home aide who came within inches of killing a presidential candidate, reveals frustratingly little about why he would make such an attempt — or how he managed to come so close to killing the former president. And it is this mystery that has fanned conspiracy theories — some wild, some not so much — his act.

A large section of those who believe the shooter got help have posted on X what appears to be a clip from a Fox News show where the anchor reports that officials believe the shooter acted alone and that they have yet to retrieve data from his phone. Officials have said Crooks’ social media profile does not contain threatening language, nor have they found any history of mental health issues, even as they look to identify a motive. His attack, which shocked the world, killed one spectator and critically injured two others.

“How can the #FBI determine the shooter “acted alone” if they can’t access the shooter’s #1 means of communication?… is this a joke?” one user wrote. Another person wrote: “I just saw where the FBI put out a statement that the shooter was acting alone in the assassination attempt of President Trump. So we now know there was a conspiracy, and the shooter did NOT act alone. The CIA failed.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is probing the shooting, says Crooks appears to have acted alone and that they were yet to get access to the suspect’s call details. “The FBI is telling the media that they cannot open the cell phone of the shooter and they believe the shooter acted alone. This seems like a cover-up. It makes no sense,” another user posted on X.

A fourth user posted: “Did the shooter act alone? The critical question: Would an untrained 20-year-old have the wherewithal to plan and execute so complex a plan solo, almost to the point of “success”?”

A fifth user re-shared a clip that purportedly captures a Secret Service sniper on a rooftop moments before the attack that came from the opposite side. The argument: was Crooks the real shooter or just a scapegoat?

It has emerged that Crooks was bright but a quiet person, a loner who was bullied at school. A former classmate at Bethel Park High School also said he was “a comically bad shot he was unable to make the [school’s rifle] team and left after the first day”

“The shooting range at the school is 15 metres (50 feet) long by 6.4 metres (21 feet) wide, with seven ranges. Crooks once fired from the seventh lane — the closest lane to the right wall — and hit the left wall, completely missing every target on the back wall. He missed his target by close to 6.1 meters (20 feet),” Jameson Murphy, the former classmate, said. A resident of Bethel Park, about an hour away from where the shooting occurred, Crooks, however, was a member of a local shooting club named Clairton Sportsmen’s Club.

Crooks is said to have targeted Trump from a distance of 150 metres (500 feet), with the CNN quoting sources as saying that the shots came from the “three o’clock” position of the former President’s podium location. Trump later said a last-moment head tilt saved him from the assassination as a bullet grazed his right year. According to law enforcement officials, the gun Crooks used was a legally purchased AR15-style semiautomatic rifle traced to his father, which helped officials to determine the gunman’s identity because he was not carrying identification, the CNN added.

Crooks would have been old enough to vote in his first presidential election this November, Federal Election Commission records show that a donor listed as Thomas Crooks with the gunman’s street address gave $15 to Progressive Turnout Project, a Democratic-aligned political action committee, on Inauguration Day in January 2021, when Crooks was 17, the CNN article cited above reported. He is also said to be a registered Republican. His high school counselor described him as “respectful” and said he never knew Crooks to be political, according to Reuters.