A tip of the hat is in order to a former employer of mine – not the Johnstown Daily Bugle, but the Tribune-Review – for coming up with background on Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old Bethel Park man authorities have identified as the shooter of Donald Trump Saturday.
In a story by Ryan Deto that you can find by going to triblive.com, Crooks is identified as a registered Republican, which I’d read in other stories posted elsewhere. Seemed odd to me.
But Deto has much more. The Republican bit seems to be for show, sort of like those widely used snapshots you see of JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald posing beforehand with a newspaper and the gun that ostensibly was used to assassinate Kennedy.
Deto balances the disgruntled Republican narrative by reporting that as a 17-year-old Crooks, despite being too young to vote, was donating to a leftist group that seeks to increase Democratic voter turnout. According to the story, that donation was made the very day Joe Biden was sworn into office.
This is quite the contradiction from a registered Republican.
Deto goes on to note the stereotypical observations from those who knew Crooks – quiet kid, never thought he’d do something like this.
Near the end of the story, Deto reports that both parents are social workers, the mother a registered Democrat and the father a Libertarian.
This is the sort of specific background I’ve read nowhere else and I commend Deto for committing an act of journalism and answering questions being asked by many.
Sam Ross Jr's site 