Motive Mystery: School Insists Trump Shooter WASN’T BULLIED — ‛He Was Fine’
Investigators are still working to determine a motive behind the shooting carried out by Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20.
July 16 2024, Published 8:05 p.m. ET
A high school counselor from Pennsylvania insists Donald Trump's would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was not bullied by his former classmates, despite reports depicting the gunman as an "outcast" who was picked on "relentlessly" in school, RadarOnline.com can reveal.
The motive behind the attempted assassination remains a mystery days after Crooks, 20, was shot dead by the Secret Service at Trump's rally on Saturday, July 13.
Crooks appeared in an ad filmed at Bethel Park High School in 2022.
As the FBI investigated this week, several people who knew Crooks from Bethel Park High — which sits in a suburb about 50 miles north of Butler — have spoken about their recollections of the gunman during their school days together.
In recent interviews, several of Crooks' former classmates claimed he was "mocked" for his fashion choices. Mason Ripley, 18, who remembered seeing Crooks in the hallways at school, told the outlet: “He was a normal seeming guy. Sometimes he wore hunting gear, like camo clothes, which was a bit weird.”
Another former Bethel Park High student, Sarah D’Angelo, claimed the shooter had “few friends” and spent his breaks playing video games instead of socializing.
D'Angelo continued: “There were a few people that were more violent in school. He was not one of those kids.”
Crooks took several shots from a rooftop near the rally before being taken out by Secret Service.
Another former student confirmed to NBC that Crooks "would sit alone at lunch" and called him "an outcast" who was "bullied so much.”
The student continued: "You know how kids are, they are going to target him because they think it is funny. It’s honestly kind of sad, I don’t want to say this is what provoked it, but you never know."
However, retired school counselor Jim Knapp — who worked at Bethel Park High for 30 years — told The U.S. Sun he did not recall Crooks as a loner who was bullied. Instead, he remembered the student, who graduated in 2022, as "a quiet young man" who "had a small group of friends."
Crooks fired several rounds into the rally crowd and toward Trump, killing one attendee and grazing the former president's ear.
Knapp said that Crooks "stayed mostly to himself," but added, "I can assure you he was not bullied.” He explained Crooks would eat lunch alone because his friends had different schedules.
The teacher continued: “Every day I would walk through the lunchrooms and I would always make a point to go over to any kid sitting alone to make sure they were comfortable or to see if they wanted to interact. And in Thomas’ case, he would always say, ‘Hey, Mr. Knapp. I’m good, it’s good to see you,’ and then I’d move on. But he was fine."
Knapp said the school "took bullying and mental health very seriously and they were very proactive to stop that kind of behavior ... So unless it was happening in his home or on the internet, Thomas was definitely not bullied."
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Officials found explosives during a search of Crooks' vehicle, and more than a dozen guns at his home in Bethel Park.
As Radar previously reported, the FBI found explosives during a search of the gunman's home in Bethel Park, and the agency said it was investigating Saturday's incident as an "assassination attempt" and "potential domestic terrorism."
