Trump shooter's trolling accounts on the rise while FBI struggles with Thomas Crooks' limited digital footprint

FBI is scrambling to narrow down Thomas Crooks' motive behind the July 13 Trump assassination attempt, but lack of information maintains his elusiveness.

In what was possibly the most horrifying experience of his life, former President Donald Trump became the victim of a near-fatal incident on July 13 during his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Unforgettable pictures of the day captured a red vision as blood streaked the Republican presidential nominee's face when a bullet apparently grazed his right ear. FBI later ID'ed the failed assassination attempt's shooter as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.

An old yearbook photo of Thomas Matthew Crooks (left) vs a presumably fake Steam account, though named Thomas M Crooks, uses anti-Trump protester Maxwell Yearick's mugshot as profile photo (right).

Crooks traced his life story to Pennsylvania and earned his high school diploma from Bethel Park High School in 2022, having spent most of his life in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bethel Park. The young shooter, now dead, has evidently become the talk of the town for infamous reasons. Simultaneously, the FBI continued its hefty investigation, hoping to narrow down his motives for the life-threatening decision.

The mystery continues to deepen in the early stages of the investigation due to the lack of a clear motive. However, as the FBI persistently scrambles to find the hidden truth, social media platforms have been flooded with numerous trolling accounts targeting the would-be assassin.

A slew of fake/ trolling accounts by the name of Thomas Crooks or Thomas M Crooks emerge online

Reddit especially erupted into a maddening frenzy as users claimed to have found the Trump shooter’s alleged gaming profile on Steam. The said account, “Thomas M Crooks”, lists its origins tied to Pennsylvania, United States, and the user’s bio reads, “July 13th, watch this space. Lee Harvey Oswald is my hero fr.” Although the introduction apparently suggests that Crooks left an ominous message, hinting at what he was going to do on July 13, the implication gets even less hazy with the mention of Oswald, the gunman who shot and killed President John F Kennedy on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.

Despite the connections being made, the profile picture attached to the account is not Crooks’. Several gaming community members engaging on Steam have been known for linking different pictures for their profiles. So, there’s the possibility that Crooks could have missed out on using his own image as his Steam profile photo. Whose picture is this person using, then? 

It's left-wing extremist Maxwell Yearick's mugshot. In 2016, Pittsburgh-based TV station WTAE and Pennsylvania-based Tribune-Review reported that three anti-trump protesters, including Yearick (then 29), were arrested outside a Trump rally venue following an altercation with police. According to AP News, Yearick was one of the two people who were charged with assault and resisting arrest.

Earlier this week, he was even misidentified online as the prime suspect in the July 13 assassination attempt of Trump. However, it was later notified that Yearick’s photo did not resemble the subject identified by authorities, i.e. Crooks.

Therefore, this is one of the prime takeaways from the Steam profile: this was possibly another attempt to fake Crooks’ identity on the gaming platform. (See post here)

The account's recent activity tab shows the supposed owner of the profile last spent his time engaging with games such as the aim-training shooter game AimLabs, Mr President! and Chained Together on July 13.

Among these titles, M President! particularly garnered a lot of attention as it portrays a simulation parodying Trump through the character of “the most hated presidential candidate of all time Ronald Rump.” The game’s synopsis on Steam reads: “Mr.President! Can you take a bullet for the soon to be President of the United States of America?! You play as Dick “Rock-Hard” Johnson a bulletproof man, the best bodyguard money can buy.” The said character is tasked with protecting the presidential candidate.

The profile admin has seemingly spent the most time playing this game—132 hours. Redditors were also cognisant of the satire shaping up in real-time.

“Pretty sure it's a fake account. Was apparently created the day of, so highly doubtful it's legit,” a user commented. As the account appeared to be “trolling for attention,” it wasn’t the first or the last of its kind. A seemingly endless stretch of accounts called “Thomas Crooks” or “Thomas M Crooks” have popped up on the Steam Community since the July 13 incident.

While some are still associating misidentified individuals’ pictures with the actual suspect, countless others have now attached Crooks’ real pictures shared online. If the FBI is struggling to locate Crooks’ real digital footprint, it’s highly unlikely that regular internet users will succeed amid a booming overcrowding of trolling or fake accounts.

Trump shooter remains elusive, with limited online footprint

For now, Crooks remains an “elusive enigma” because even days after the assassination attempt and the FBI scouring his mobile phone, computer device, home and car, the mystery shooting is only raising questions instead of answering anything.

His political leanings are just as much of a big mystery since voter records show him registered as a Republican in Pennsylvania. However, federal campaign finance reports signal that he donated $15 to a Democrat-aligned political action committee on the day of President Joe Biden’s inauguration - January 20, 2021.

Thus far, his classmates at Bethel Park High School have described him as an “outcast” who was “bullied almost every day.” He reportedly later attended the Community College of Allegheny County. With an associate’s degree with honours in engineering science, he’s also worked at a nursing home as a dietary aide.

Another AP report also revealed that Crooks tried out for his school’s rifle team as a freshman, but he was rejected because he was a bad shooter. Nevertheless, he found access to a shooting range about 11 miles east of Bethel Park by joining the Clairton Sportsmen’s Club through his family.

While the lack of information on Crooks has significantly hindered the investigation process, his family’s small online footprint ties his father to gun marketplaces. USA Today previously reported that the gunman’s father, Matthew Crooks, purchased an item in 2020 from Botach, described as a one-stop shop for “law enforcement, military and public safety gear.” The leaked data recovered by the outlet does not, however, disclose which item was purchased. Therefore, it’s difficult to pin down Matthew Crooks’ transaction at the time to a firearm.

An AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, a relatively common firearm in the US, was recovered near Crooks at the scene of the shooting on July 13.

Another recent report by The Wall Street Journal made similar claims that Crooks barely left any online record to trace. His limited digital footprint has so far ostensibly revealed a chess profile, an account for online coding classes and some other gaming accounts. None of his public online postings seemed to have indicated any ties to suspicious organisations or peer groups.