Who Was Thomas Matthew Crooks?

By Rich Kozlovich 

Editor's Note: Since I published this the amount of information coming out over this is a best weird, and is getting weirder.  I've stored all that information for an update next week, but I don't think this story will be told in full for a while. Calling this story weird is an insult to weird.  RK

I know based on my articles many will find what I'm going to say a bit surprising. I'm feeling sorry for this kid, Thomas Matthew Crooks.   Admittedly this is a high school picture of a younger Crooks by two years, and clearly intended to elicit a sympathetic emotional reaction, and it works.  

I’ve been trying to piece together Crooks life for this article in order to try and explain his actions, but there’s really nothing there.  

There are those who've attempted to blame the education system for his actions, but his sister graduated two years before him, and her school life was very different than her brothers.  

They're looking to see who he's been in contact with in order to see if there's a conspiracy behind this.  And when you read the excuses from the Secret Service, and the events as the play out if there is a conspiracy, it seems to me all the evidence points to the Deep State, here, here, here, here, here, here, and now here today.

It's even being claimed the FBI can't break into his phone.  Hackers can break into the most secure sites on the planet, but the FBI can't break into a phone?  Imagine that!  Now, does anyone besides me think that's just a bit remarkable? 

But think about this. Who would recruit a kid with no military training, not a great shooter with no experience and no connections to assassinate one of the most high profile people in the world?  Even the Deep State isn't that stupid. 

I'm guessing he acted alone, and I think as time goes by, we'll find that was the story of his life.  I'm betting he was not particularly accepted, and he had a desire to be part of something, anything.  And as time goes by I think we'll realize politics wasn't at the heart of his actions, just an excuse.

He was intelligent, a good student, the teacher’s liked him, had a real passion for history, which to me is telling as it seems to me he was trying to make sense out of life.  History alone won't do that.  It's a good start, but life has to be lived, and experienced.  All the good and all the bad, all the glorious successes, all the dismal failures, all the friends, all the enemies, and all the betrayals.  Then history can fill in the gaps and show us the patterns.   

He was described as a nice quiet loner who was bullied, and seemingly gave up easily.  He tried out for the High School varsity rifle team and failed, and was such a bad shooter he wouldn't have qualified for the JV team, and never tried out again, although he did join a shooting club later.  

A bullet traveling that distance would take about one second to the target, so how did he miss that close?   There's talk how Trump moved his head slightly and and that saved him, but a real shooter wouldn't have missed at that distance, movement or not.  As a friend recently pointed out shooting targets and shooting people are very different.  Adrenalin must have been pumping through him like crazy, and as hunters can tell you, that makes a huge difference, and once again, he had no military training that would have taught him how to control that. 

In spite of clearly being intelligent he worked in a nursing home kitchen, which was at least a start. But did he view his short life of 20 years as a failure with no meaning, and no reason to go on?  I don’t know, but, I’m beginning to believe he went at this knowing he couldn’t survive, and he wanted to lash out and be remembered.  The fact he kept shooting others seems to me to justify that explanation.  

An assassin would focus on his target, would have picked a much more secure location, and would have a planned exist strategy.  He did none of that.  His actions seem to put him in same the same category as Audrey Elizabeth Hale in Nashville, who murdered school children.  Seriously troubled people.   

Not much of a motive, and now his 20 year old life is snuffed out, a father died protecting his daughter, and others were seriously wounded.  And for nothing.  I think this is sad, and I'm truly saddened for his family, as there's no way to ameliorate their pain, nor are there any solutions, as all these kind of actions defy definition or understanding.