'Quiet kid': Investigators crack Trump shooter's phone

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Author: Washington Post,
Publish Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2024, 1:36pm

New, faster phone-cracking technology was used to access the Trump rally gunman’s cellphone, according to people familiar with the investigation who described the race to find clues to the 20-year-old’s motive for trying to kill the former President.

Officials said on Monday they were able to access a cellphone belonging to Thomas Matthew Crooks, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, but they did not describe the technology behind that effort. Investigators are also exploring the possibility the gunman may have used two phones, after agents recovered a cellphone in Crooks’ house with a dead battery, according to the people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Authorities say Crooks fired an AR-style rifle at Trump from a rooftop near a campaign rally on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one person in the crowd and critically injuring two others.

Trump, who would officially become the Republican presidential nominee two days later, was wounded in the ear.

A Secret Service sniper on a different rooftop then shot and killed the gunman.

Despite a massive investigation launched after the shooting and an avalanche of media attention, little information has surfaced publicly about Crooks’ interests and beliefs, or what may have led him to climb the roof of the building, flatten himself against it and open fire with a gun his father had legally purchased 11 years before.

After the shooting, investigators approached Crooks’ body and found he was carrying a cellphone. That device was first sent to the Pittsburgh FBI office, which did not have the technology to open it quickly, according to the people familiar with the investigation.

Officials sent the phone to the FBI’s laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, on Sunday, the people said. At Quantico, FBI agents used technology from Cellebrite, a company well known among law enforcement agencies for helping them access data on phones seized or recovered in criminal investigations, to get into the phone quickly.

The phone was a relatively new model, which can be harder for law enforcement to access than old phones because of newer software, according to technology experts. In many federal investigations, it can take hours, weeks or months to open a suspect’s phone.

In the Crooks case, which was an urgent priority for both the FBI and Cellebrite, the contractor’s technology was able to open it in less than 40 minutes.

Cracking the phone did not crack the case. It offered some leads to pursue, but did not hold any immediate evidence of motive or what agents call “derogatory information” — clues to criminal plans or associates.

Crooks’ home life and his relationship with his parents are also of particular interest to investigators as they try to understand his thinking.

Both of his parents have some health issues, and while the young man lived with them, so far it does not appear to investigators they were keeping close tabs on his activities or interests in the days and months leading up to the shooting. The couple have struck investigators as loving parents, but perhaps not particularly attuned to the specifics of their son’s life.

Family members have not responded to interview requests from the Washington Post.

Kelly Little, 38, who lives across the street from the Crooks family, said on Tuesday that she recalled seeing a “Trump” sign in the family’s yard some time ago. She couldn’t remember when the sign appeared, but said it stood out to her because political yard signs are rare on her corner.

Little has lived in that section of Bethel Park since 2018 with her sister and two sons. She said local teenagers and children liked to gather on her lawn, but Crooks — a strong maths student who graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022 — did not tend to hang out with them.

Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, the neighbourhood where gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks lived. Photo / Washington Post

Instead, Little would often see him out on walks almost every day, usually wearing a backpack and large headphones. He would smile at her and wave.

“A normal kid for this neighbourhood,” she said. “A quiet, dorky kid.”

Little said Crooks’ parents rarely came outside. As far as she knew, they did not socialise with other families nearby, she said, but that was not particularly unusual.

Her 17-year-old son, Liam Campbell, said he saw Crooks’ parents get into a red car on Monday night and drive away. He also said he remembered seeing “a couple of political signs in their yard”. The signs, he said, were “MAGA related ... Trump stuff”.

Jim Knapp, who worked at Bethel Park High School for 30 years, said he was Crooks’ guidance counsellor for his last three years at the school. He described his former student as “quiet”, “intelligent,” “co-operative” and “well spoken.”

Knapp said he noticed Crooks spent most of his time with a group of about five boys. During his sophomore year, he would often sit alone in the cafeteria. Knapp said he later learned Crooks’ schedule that year did not align with that of his closest friends.

Knapp said he would check in on Crooks and ask if he could join him at the lunch table. In response, Knapp recalled, Crooks would say: “No, I’m okay, Mr Knapp. I’ll just sit here by myself.” Then he would return to his phone to play games.

The counsellor described that behaviour as normal for a high school student. Throughout junior and senior years, he said, Crooks ate lunch with his friends.

Knapp said he chose to talk publicly about his relationship to Crooks because of reports that the young man had been bullied at high school — allegations the guidance counsellor adamantly denies.

“I know for a fact he wasn’t bullied in school,” Knapp said. “Because if he were, I would have known about it.”

Knapp also said he was certain Crooks was never disciplined. As a guidance counsellor, he met with his students at least twice a year. Knapp said he met Crooks’ parents many times and knew the family relatively well because Crooks’ older sister worked in the guidance counsellor’s office.

He said their parents attended the school’s open-house events every year, which involved following their kids’ schedules and getting to know their teachers for each subject. “They were very, very nice,” he said.

Knapp said Crooks left high school excited about going to college. He worked at a nursing home and graduated in May with an associate degree in engineering science from the Community College of Allegheny County in western Pennsylvania, according to a college spokesperson.

Crooks had planned to enrol at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh this fall, a university spokesperson said this week.

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