Thomas Matthew Crooks: How did mental health affect the Trump assassination attempt in Butler County?
A year after an assassination attempt shocked Butler County, the motives of the gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, remain largely a mystery.
Bits and pieces of Crooks’ life have come to light over the past year and they paint a conflicting picture of why the 20-year-old from Bethel Park brought a AR-15 style rifle to then candidate President Donald Trump’s rally at the Butler Farm Show grounds and fired eight shots in Trump’s direction, killing one spectator and critically injuring two others.
While Crooks was publicly identified as the gunman less than a day after the shooting, no investigating body has pinned down a motive for his action as of June 2025. Shortly after the shooting, the FBI turned up evidence on Crooks’ phone of searches for “major depressive disorder,” although it’s unclear whether Crooks was ever formally diagnosed with it.
According to a report from the New York Times, which was released this June, Crooks displayed some signs that his mental health was unraveling in the months before he committed the act, with his father telling investigators that he had started talking to himself and dancing around his room late at night.
“I would suppose that there may have been some delusion going on, some loss of touch with reality,” said Donna Lamison, executive director of NAMI (National Alliance of Mental Illness) Butler County. “Each individual is different. He may have been feeling very badly about himself or about life in general, and I don't mean our normal kind of bad day. I mean clinical depression.
“But if he wasn’t diagnosed, it’s impossible to tell.”
In trying to explain why Crooks may have committed the act, Maria Tcherni-Buzzeo, criminal justice professor at the University of New Haven, cited a study performed by Dr. Adam Lankford on suicide bombers and other suicide terrorists.
“I think it's a combination of fame, sacrifice and the idea that his life is going to have an impact,” Tcherni-Buzzeo said. “And what Lankford found is that suicide bombers are almost always people with a history of clinical depression, or suicidal thoughts, or mental health issues.”
However, Tcherni-Buzzeo says clinical depression is by no means an indicator someone is going to attempt murder.
“There are millions of people with clinical depression or suicidal ideation,” she said. “But only a few of them would try to actually kill somebody. It's an important factor, but it's a factor that affects millions of other people who don't commit violent crime.”
So far, investigations haven’t turned up evidence Crooks had a major public social media presence. However, the internet as a whole may have played a role in the events, as Crooks was also found to have made multiple searches involving Trump, President Joe Biden, then Attorney General Merrick Garland, then FBI Director Christopher Wray and other political figures.
He also searched for information regarding both parties’ national conventions, as well as notable shooting cases, including a search for “how far was Oswald from Kennedy,” referring to the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and a mug shot of 2021 Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley was found on his phone.
“I think that younger folks seem to spend much more time communicating via social media or catching up on other folks via social media than they do person-to-person interaction,” Lamison said. “So I think it's a huge influence.”
“Certainly there's dangers in social media related to the algorithms that they use, and how they can heighten people’s emotions and anger,” said Butler County Commissioner Leslie Osche, who was present July 13, 2024, during the assassination attempt of Trump. “We have to be deliberate in our efforts with young people, to be present with them, to engage them in conversations.”
However, while she said she believes social media may have played a role in the events, Tcherni-Buzzeo believes it was not the only cause for what happened.
“Before social media, somebody would be like Napoleon. They would be influenced by history books or movies, and now influenced by social media,” she said. “Somebody would think that they are going to be like the savior of humanity by assassinating someone who they see as the source of evil. There will always be sources of ‘inspiration’ that feed into this idea that a person trying to assassinate a presidential candidate would have.”
Osche suggests youths stay away from the screen and engage in social activities such as the scouting and the 4-H club to help prevent them from falling into the same negative influences as Crooks.
“I think it's an important thing to reflect on how we’re engaging our youth in positive activities so that they aren’t distracted by this type of behavior,” Osche said. “I just felt like that really wasn't getting any attention in all of the noise surrounding what happened.
“We're looking at a young man, who maybe had some sort of struggles finding his place in the world, and then unfortunately went down around a hole that was not a good one. It’s very sad, but it’s happening time and time again.”
Above all, Lamison suggested that tragedies like the one last year can be avoided with better access to mental health resources, as well as better awareness of the symptoms of poor mental health.
“More openness and awareness and access to good mental health treatment is the only answer,” Lamison said. “Everyone just needs to be more aware, more educated and, I guess, kindness would go a long, long way … kindness and respect for one another as human beings.”
Case file on Thomas M. Crooks
– After Crooks was gunned down by a counter-sniper from the U.S. Secret Service following his attempt on the life of then candidate President Donald Trump, authorities found bomb-making materials inside his vehicle. The New York Times later reported that Crooks made an online purchase of two gallons of nitromethane, a fuel additive which can be used in homemade explosives, in January 2024 for just over $100.
– The automatic rifle that Crooks used in the shooting was legally acquired from his father, Matthew, who has been described as a gun enthusiast. In August 2023, Crooks became a member of the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club in Allegheny County, and made frequent visits to the gun range in the months prior to the shooting, including the day before the rally.
– Crooks attended Bethel Park High School, where he scored 1530 out of 1600 on the SAT, and went on to attend Community College of Allegheny County. While at high school, he attempted to join the rifle team, but according to another team member, he was not selected.
