Before he allegedly fired the shots heard around the country, Thomas Matthew Crooks barely made a sound.
Two former classmates of the 20-year-old Crooks told TPM they were stunned when he was identified as the gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday evening. According to Crooks’ classmates, prior to the incident, the man they knew as “Tom” was not someone who made a dramatic impression.
“He was awfully quiet. Nothing more than that,” Michael Dudjak, who graduated from Pennsylvania’s Bethel Park High School with Crooks in 2022, told TPM in a phone conversation on Sunday afternoon. “He never stuck out — like, if you saw him in a crowd of people at school, you wouldn’t think he was anything more than just an average kid.”
The FBI named Crooks as the suspected gunman early Sunday morning, roughly six hours after the hail of bullets killed one rally attendee, injured two others, and left Trump’s ear bloodied. Law enforcement killed the gunman moments after the shots rang out. According to the New York Times, a source with knowledge of the investigation said authorities found “materials that could be used to make two explosive devices” in Crooks’ car and “believe they may have found a third at his residence.”
Dudjak said he and Crooks’ other classmates were astonished when he was identified as the suspect.
“It was definitely very shocking. I was with five other people we graduated with. We were all in the same class as Tom, and it was just really shocking,” Dudjak said. “None of us could put it into words. We were all together and it just got real quiet. We couldn’t believe it — just — it was just shocking.”
Their reaction was a more intimate version of the uncertainty and horror that gripped the nation over the weekend. For years, political violence and division have heated up as Trump raged against his political enemies and made a failed attempt to stay in power that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The shooting seemed like a clear sign that those long simmering tensions are boiling over again as Trump engages in a heated re-election campaign against his successor, President Joe Biden.
In American history, there have been a dozen other assassination attempts targeting presidents and presidential candidates. Four presidents have died from gunshot wounds.
The significance of the attempt on Trump’s life — and the highly polarized climate in which it has occurred — has left many looking for answers. While law enforcement has, thus far, not announced a motive, some of Trump’s allies have been eager to blame Biden and other Democrats for the shooting. Relatively little is known about Crooks and the few details that have been uncovered about his life do not yet fit with any clear political narrative. The suspected gunman was apparently wearing a t-shirt from “Demolition Ranch,” a popular YouTube channel dedicated to firearms, during the shooting. Public records indicate he was a registered Republican, but campaign finance records show he made a $15 donation earmarked for Progressive Turnout PAC, a Democratic-aligned group, on Jan. 20, 2021, the day of Biden’s inauguration.
Crooks’ classmates may have more questions than anyone else. Dudjak, who said he attended “kindergarten through high school” with Crooks, said the alleged gunman gave no indication of having strong political leanings.
“Nothing stuck out about his political views. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, he’s definitely this or that,’” Dudjak said. “Like I said, he was a quiet kid. No one knew exactly what he was politically.”
Dudjak said that, based on a conversation they had in eighth grade, he believed Crooks was “into computers.” Crooks won a math and science award during his senior year. According to Dudjak, he helped other students with their work.
“We spoke here and there in class — like if I needed math homework,” Dudjak said. “I know people that got math homework from him.”
Apart from that, Dudjak said Crooks kept to himself.
“He was kind of just always doing his own thing in a sense … if he did have an outside friend group, I didn’t know of it,” explained Dudjak.
Jason Kohler, another former classmate, told a local news station that Crooks was known for wearing “hunting” gear and that he was “relentlessly” bullied at school. Dudjak said those quotes, which have made headlines, did not match his recollection of Crooks. Other than “a camo jacket for the wintertime,” Dudjak said Crooks “always” wore “a t-shirt and blue jeans.” He also did not recall his classmate being bullied.
“I had gone to school with him for, what, 14 years of my life or something like that,” said Dudjak. “I’d never seen anyone get bullied at Bethel Park High School really. … Maybe cyber bullying online, but again, he had no social media. He was not part of that. … I do not think he was bullied. … I could be mistaken … but I spoke to some of my friends about it, we never saw it visibly with our own eyes or heard of it.”
Another classmate who attended Bethel Park High School with Crooks offered a similar recollection in text messages exchanged with TPM. The classmate, who requested anonymity, said they “had classes with him throughout middle and high school.”
“We graduated in the same class at Bethel Park. We weren’t ever close friends but sometimes talked in class,” the classmate said, adding, “He went by Tom. He was always quiet and shy but was always nice to me. He was shy and didn’t talk about politics in high school. He was very smart and always in AP and Honors classes with myself.”
The classmate said Crooks “had a small group of friends.”
“I had never witnessed him being bullied. He was always dressing in cargo pants, shorts and a t-shirt,” the classmate said.
“The thing I remember most about him is he always being shy and quiet. I remember in middle school one of our teachers would always encourage him and try to get him out of his shell.”
Overall, the classmate described law enforcement’s identification of Crooks as the attempted assassin as “very shocking and sad news.”
“I could never picture him doing something like this. He was always shy and I never saw him being rude,” the classmate said. “I feel like Bethel Park is a very nice community and I was really surprised someone from BP let alone Tom could do something like that.”
For Dudjak, the shock was amplified by how unremarkable Crooks seemed in school.
“He’s definitely someone that wasn’t remembered, as sad as that may be,” Dudjak said, before adding, “But I guess now he will be.”
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