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  8.  » Trump gunman: An ‘outcast’ who wasn’t let on school rifle team because he was ‘a bad shooter’

Niamh Lynch –Sky News July 15, 2024

Thomas Matthew Crooks has been named as the gunman in the assassination attempt against Donald Trump at a campaign rally on Saturday evening.

Described as a “outcast” who regularly wore hunting outfits to school, Crooks lived in a well-to-do city an hour from scene of his assassination attempt.

Investigators say bomb-making material was found in a vehicle at his home.

Who was the gunman?

The FBI named him as Thomas Matthew Crooks around seven hours after the shooting.

Law enforcement said Crooks was 20 years old and from Bethel Park in Pennsylvania, a predominantly white, relatively well-to-do city in the southern part of greater Pittsburgh.

The site of the rally, Butler, is about an hour’s drive north of Pittsburgh.

Crooks was registered as a Republican voter in Pennsylvania, but federal campaign finance reports also show he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on 20 January 2021, the day Biden was sworn into office.

An “outcast” who wasn’t let onto the school rifle team

A high school classmate, Jason Kohler, 21, said Crooks was a “loner” who was “bullied so much in high school”.

He would regularly wear hunting outfits and was made fun of for the way he dressed, Mr Kohler said.

“He would sit alone at lunch. He was just the outcast,” Mr Kohler said. “It’s honestly kind of sad.”

Crooks tried out for the school’s rifle team but was turned away because he was “a bad shooter”, said Frederick Mach, a current captain of the team who was a few years behind Crooks at the school.

Michael Dudjak, 20, who went to school with Crooks for most of his life, recalled him as a relatively reserved and quiet classmate. He didn’t hear or see Crooks being actively bullied by their peers, Mr Dudjak said, but Crooks was “on his own a lot”.

He couldn’t recall Crooks ever being outspoken about politics or very active on social media. Mr Dudjak was with some friends and acquaintances from high school Saturday night when he learned that Crooks was the gunman.

They were all “in shock” and “couldn’t fathom” the news, he said.

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