Thomas Matthew Crooks may have been trying to “diagnose himself” when he researched mental disorders months before he attempted to assassinate Donald Trump — a key step in what one former FBI agent described as the typical route some take to committing mass violence.
In April, Crooks made online searches for major depressive disorder, investigators discovered this week – though there is no evidence he was ever formally diagnosed with the condition.
“One thing may be that he was trying to diagnose himself and could tell that he was having these thoughts or these feelings,” former FBI terrorism task force supervisor Michael McKeown told WTAE of the unearthed searches.
“And then, unfortunately, instead of getting mental health counseling, he took the other route of violence,” McKeown added.
Crooks’ search history could be part of the first step in what the FBI calls the “pathway to violence,” which is known as expressing grievances, he explained.
When investigators examined Crooks’ devices, they also found that he made online searches for Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley and his parents, as well as GOP Presidential nominee Donald Trump, President Biden, and other high-profile political figures.
He had also done target shooting at a nearby gun range that he frequented with his father, and appeared to have scouted out the rally location one week ahead of time.
On the morning of the shooting, Crooks returned to the rally grounds with a range finder – seemingly to test how authorities would respond.
Crooks’ movements in the lead-up to the assassination attempt could be viewed as the research and preparation step by the FBI, McKeown explained.
“They want to test that. Can they face law enforcement or an authority figure before they go on the attack? So they may do something small to test that and then see if it works out,” McKeown said.
Everything we know about the Trump assassination attempt
- 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks was identified as the shooter who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
- Crooks was shot dead by Secret Service agents.
- The gunman grazed Trump’s ear, killed a 50-year-old retired fire chief, and injured two other rally-goers.
- Investigators detailed Crooks’ search history to lawmakers, revealing that he looked for the dates of Trump’s appearances and the Democratic National Convention.
- Crooks’ search history also revealed a broad interest in high-profile people and celebrities, regardless of their political affiliation, FBI officials reportedly said.
- Trump exclusively recounted surviving the “surreal” assassination attempt with The Post at the rally, remarking, “I’m supposed to be dead.”
- High-profile politicians, including President Biden and Vice President Harris, addressed the nation about the shooting, calling it “a heinous, horrible and cowardly act.”
Authorities are still trying to parse out Crooks’ motive for scaling the roof of a nearby factory and aiming his father’s AR-15 style rifle just 130 yards from the podium where Trump, 78, was addressing the crowds on July 13.
Some experts have suggested that the shooting could have been the result of a mental health crisis which spiraled out of control.
“I don’t know that he was depressed, but that may have contributed to his actions,” Dr. Craig Hands, a clinical psychologist in California, told the Daily Mail.
“This depression creates isolation… there is kind of a burning ember kind of depression that’s associated with internal rage against oneself, and rage against the machine as it were. Rage against the world,” he explained.
If Crooks’ ultimate plan was to carry out a mass shooting, he may have been trying to kill “the most visible” people in society who made him feel invisible by comparison, Dr. Rachel Toles, a licensed clinical psychologist, added.
Medical researcher Professor Peter Gøtzsche — who has sparked controversy by claiming psychiatric drugs are damaging for patients –suggested it was “quite possible that he was taking a depression drug, which we know increases the risk of homicide.”
Individuals with depression were about three times more likely than the general population to commit a violent act, according to one 2015 Oxford University study — but more recent analyses emphasized that association is inconsistent.
Only about “5% of mass shootings are related to severe mental illness,” Dr. Ragy Girgis, associate professor of clinical psychiatry in the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry, told the Columbia Psychiatry News in 2022.
Former classmates remembered Crooks as a “comically bad” shot who was cut from the rifle team, but noted that he was otherwise quiet and did not appear to have extreme political beliefs.
Crooks’ apparent lack of ideological convictions makes him similar to John Hinckley Jr., who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
“It wasn’t necessarily a political ideology. It was more of the notoriety that [Hinckley] wanted to gain for a famous actress. So it was a political figure that was shot, President Reagan, but the ideology wasn’t necessarily political,” McKeown noted.
Crooks was shot dead by the Secret Service moments after he fired several shots into the crowd at the Butler Farm Show grounds.
The would-be assassin managed to graze former President Donald Trump’s right ear. One rally goer was killed, and two others were critically wounded in the shooting.
