Amidst the hysteria immediately following the attempted assassination of Trump, with dozens of the MAGA tribe blaming Biden and the Dems, we've since learned Thomas Crooks - the gunman - was basically an introvert and a math nerd . As I told wifey when his image first popped up, he could pass for "Gilbert' - one of the lead characters in the movie 'The Revenge of the Nerds'. Well don't take my word for it, here's "Gilbert" from that flick:
Like Gilbert we also learned - from a schoolmate interviewed on 'Good Morning America' Monday- Thomas Crooks was "bullied relentlessly". When asked about Crooks in HS, the jock mugged for the camera then offered - with a smirk - that Crooks "would always sit by himself" (in the cafeteria) and come in wearing military gear, i.e. camo slacks, and also a surgical mask- despite the pandemic being nearly finished. The jock stared at the ABC reporter as if to say: "Jeez, what would you expect us to do with this kind of a kook? Of course he was bullied!" (The claim Crooks was bullied has been denied, however, by one of his guidance counselors who insisted that the school kept "close tabs" on the mental conditions and interactions of students. Maybe. But the jock interviewed sounded pretty sure of himself.)
But being bullied in schools carries consequences as we've learned over the decades, starting with 14-year-old Michael Carneal, at Heath High School in Paducah, Ky. He opened fire in that 1997 tragedy killing 3 classmates. The Baltimore Sun backstory at the time was that Carneal was bullied mercilessly, including being forced to run a "gauntlet" with his Christian Bible believer classmates on either side, banging him over the head with their 'good books'. After months of such abuse he blew a gasket and took his pent-up ire out on classmates. Two years later, much the same narrative emerged with the Columbine killers - Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris - purported to have been stuffed in lockers by the football jocks and subjected to endless taunts. (Basically, for wearing black 'Goth' attire every day.)
While the authorities, according to the news media, continue to turn over every last scrap and byte in Crooks' home to uncover his "ideology", it is quite possible he has none. He simply blew his gasket after years of bullying and took his ire out - perhaps- on the person he perceived to be the biggest bully in the nation. Lest readers forget, this orange reprobate urged supporters to beat up protesters at rallies in 2016, cheered a Republican congressman for body-slamming a reporter, and called for looters and shoplifters to be shot. He has also posted images (on his Truth Social) showing a bat aimed at the head of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg,
after Bragg succeeded in bringing the infamous 'hush money' case - which resulted in 34 felony convictions. So it is conceivable, - though obviously not proven - that Crooks followed all these events and decided that one desperate act might be the retribution for all the years of bullying at Bethel Park High.
We've also since learned Crooks worked as a dietary aide at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. This was in the Pittsburgh suburb of about 34,000 people located about 40 miles south of Butler where the Trump rally was held. The administrator of the facility said in a statement to the WaPo that Crooks “performed his job without concern, and his background check was clean.”
Another classmate of Crooks, Sarah D'Angelo, recalled him as a "quiet kid" and "nice to anyone he talked to". This was also in an interview with the Washington Post. Evidently, according to D'Angelo, Crooks arrived before 7:30 a.m. almost every day and either finished homework or played computer games.
D’Angelo said that Crooks did not appear to have many friends, but that he also did not strike her as particularly lonely. He was good at math, “a calculus-type person,” she said. A local media outlet’s list of graduates of Bethel Park High School in 2022 listed Crooks as one of 20 students to have received a $500 prize for math and science from the school that year. D'Angelo did also seem to distinguish Crooks from the bullies noting:
“There were a few people that were more
violent in school. He was not one of those kids.”
Okay, but was he himself picked on by "those kids"? She didn't say, perhaps aware that having given her name to The Post, she didn't want to become a delayed target. She also recalled an American History class in which the pair had to do a project on the Kennedy assassination, being asked to put forward a ‘theory’ of the case. That included: how many shooters fired, where they were firing from and so on. Of course, all of that was in Chapter One of my 2013 book, The JFK Assassination – The Final Analysis
It has to be one of the greatest ironies in modern times. Thomas Matthew Crooks, the "neutralized" person who shot Donald Trump in the right ear, was relentlessly bullied in school, according to classmates. Television news, needful of viewers, pumped the story for every possible nuance, teaching the word breathless to those who might not be aware of its meaning. So far none have noticed the irony of a bullied former student shooting the most notorious bully in human history.
As well as ironic, it seems kind of inevitable in the U.S.A., awash in guns, a violent, narcissistic culture and a political candidate who foments violence, incited the attempted overthrow of a presidential election, and is a tiresome presence on the national scene. He is doing all he can to overthrow the next election, which takes place this November 5. I watched the nonstop coverage Saturday, found it much ado about something we should have expected.
- Bullying of Atheist Kids: A 'Breeding Ground' for ...
- And:
- by Gleb Tsipursky | July 16, 2024 - 5:49am | permalink
Saturday's assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump has highlighted a deeply troubling trend in American politics: the pervasive spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Following the incident at a rally in Pennsylvania, baseless claims quickly spread online, suggesting that the attack was orchestrated by political opponents or even President Biden himself. Figures like Senator JD Vance and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene have propagated these theories, further fueling division.
These conspiracy theories not only distract from the severity of the event but also contribute to the erosion of public trust in democratic institutions. For instance, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland had to publicly refute claims that the FBI had been authorized to use deadly force against Trump during the Mar-a-Lago search, calling these allegations "false and extremely dangerous." This incident starkly illustrates how quickly misinformation can take root and distort public perception.
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