A year after President Donald J. Trump survived an attempted assassination during a campaign rally, new revelations are emerging about the deeply unsettling family life of the shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.
According to a relative who spoke exclusively with The Post, Crooks grew up in a household defined by cold silence, isolation, and control. His father, Matthew Crooks, is described as a shadowy figure — emotionally absent and obsessively private.
“They stood like statues. No smiles. No movement. Like they were under orders,” said Thomas’ first cousin, Mark Crooks, recalling the last time he saw the family at a funeral in 2019.
Crooks fired eight rounds from an AR-15-style rifle at Trump on July 13, 2024, grazing the president’s ear and killing 50-year-old firefighter and father, Corey Comperatore. Two others were severely injured before a Secret Service sniper neutralized the threat from 130 yards away.
President Trump’s survival was seen by many as nothing short of a miracle.
A Family Cut Off
The Crooks family lived in Bethel Park, PA — just three hours from the rally site in Butler — yet were virtual strangers to their own relatives. Mark Crooks described how his uncle Matthew “did everything he could to keep the family away,” locking himself in a room when extended family visited.
“He was like a ghost,” Mark added. “Even when we were kids, he didn’t want to be around anyone.”
That secrecy only deepened after the assassination attempt. Thomas’ parents, Matthew and Mary, reportedly vanished from public view, refusing calls from relatives and dodging all media inquiries.
“My dad tried reaching out after it happened,” Mark said. “But my uncle never called back. Not a word. But that’s not new.”
The Quiet Radicalization
Behind closed doors, the young Crooks was apparently spiraling. Despite appearing to be a quiet college student focused on science and engineering, investigators later found he had been building homemade explosives and stockpiling weapons. His motive remains murky, but his actions were calculated: travel 260 miles, scale a building, open fire on a sitting U.S. president.
The incident raised alarms about mental illness, domestic radicalization, and failures in law enforcement surveillance — particularly among young men off the government’s radar.
A Nation Changed
The attack stunned the country and hardened Trump supporters nationwide. For many, it was a wake-up call.
“This wasn’t just an attack on President Trump,” one rallygoer said at a recent memorial event. “This was an attack on our freedom, on our right to choose our leaders.”
Trump, who returned to the campaign trail just days after the attempt on his life, has since referenced the shooting as a symbol of the radical left’s desperation and the rising tide of lawlessness.
As for the Crooks family, their silence only deepens the mystery. The shooter is gone, the victims remembered — but the chilling details of his upbringing offer a warning: sometimes, the greatest threats are quietly growing inside America’s own suburbs.
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With my three classes in College Psychology, looking at those pics of the shooters parents, you can see the mental/emotional issues the father had and his dutiful wife trying to hold a defeated marriage together — no time to share or listen to a very isolated and troubled young son!
That boy (because he had the emotions of a young kid struggling to be recognized by his own parents) was a wild cannon that would have blown, if not that day at the rally, but another day! It was eventually going to happen! He had no guidance, no emotional ties to his parents nor anyone to help guide his heart/actions!
And now the parents just disappeared into thin air — in shame?? Disbelief? Loathing? Despair? Do you think they know they screwed up big time with their son? Nope! People like that create their own disasters!
It’s so sad that a young man got caught up in his parent’s mental disability disaster and chose to try to kill our President instead of leaving his fragmented home environment, seeking a better life! The damage was already done and he did the only thing that would maybe show his broken family he was STILL ALIVE — attempt to shoot our sitting President! He got DJT’s ear tip, but killed a wonderful Patriotic Man instead and he, in turn, was shot dead!
Those parents are at a crossroads, wherever they may be, hopefully praying for forgiveness, if they know how to pray…
Trump wasn’t a “sitting president” at that time, no matter what the article says… see how easily you believed LSM lies?
Young man Crooks was damaged by usual Democrat/LSM lies… young people don’t realize they are total evil liars…
Note “wannabe” come on, ear cartilige does not grow back miraculasley like a Lizard, get real staged, totally 100% staged.
First off Trump was not President at the time, so not a sitting President, he was a candidate. So this not Presidential assassination attempt.
Yes, anybody proof read this stuff… “open fire on a sitting U.S. president”… and to NextGen Trump is currently a “former president” over and over,,,