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The 20-year-old man\u00a0who tried to assassinate<\/a>\u00a0former President Donald Trump first came to law enforcement\u2019s attention at Saturday\u2019s rally when spectators noticed him acting strangely outside the campaign event. The tip sparked a frantic search but officers were unable to find him before he managed to get on a roof, where he opened fire.<\/p>\n In the wake of\u00a0the shooting<\/a>\u00a0that killed one spectator, investigators were hunting for any clues about what may have drove Thomas Matthew Crooks, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, to carry out the shocking attack. The FBI said they were investigating it as a\u00a0potential act of domestic terrorism<\/a>, but the absence of a clear ideological motive by the man shot dead by\u00a0Secret Service<\/a>\u00a0led conspiracy theories to flourish.<\/p>\n \u201cI urge everyone \u2014 everyone, please, don\u2019t make assumptions about his motives or his affiliations,\u201d President Joe Biden\u00a0said in remarks Sunday from the White House<\/a>. \u201cLet the FBI do their job, and their partner agencies do their job. I\u2019ve instructed that this investigation be thorough and swift.\u201d<\/p>\n The FBI said it believes Crooks, who had bomb-making materials in the car he drove to the rally, acted alone. Investigators have found no threatening comments on social media accounts or ideological positions that could help explain what led him to target Trump before\u00a0Secret Service rushed<\/a>\u00a0the presumptive Republican presidential nominee off the stage, his face smeared with blood.<\/p>\n Trump said on social media the upper part of his right ear was pierced in the shooting, but advisers said he was \u201cgreat spirits\u201d ahead of his arrival Sunday in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention. Two spectators were critically injured, while a former fire chief from the area, Corey Comperatore was killed. Pennsylvania\u2019s governor said\u00a0Comperatore, 50, died a hero<\/a>\u00a0by diving onto his family to protect them.<\/p>\n Relatives of Crooks didn\u2019t respond to numerous messages from The Associated Press. His father, Matthew Crooks,\u00a0told CNN late Saturday<\/a>\u00a0that he was trying to figure out \u201cwhat the hell is going on\u201d but wouldn\u2019t speak about his son until after he talked to law enforcement. An FBI official told reporters that Crooks\u2019 family is cooperating with investigators.<\/p>\n Several rallygoers reported to local officers that Crooks was acting suspiciously and pacing near the magnetometers, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation. Officers were then told Crooks was climbing a ladder, the official said. Officers searched for him but were unable to find him before he made it to the roof, the official added.<\/p>\n Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe told the AP that a local officer climbed to the roof and encountered Crooks, who saw the officer and turned toward him just before the officer dropped down to safety. Slupe said the officer couldn\u2019t have wielded his own gun under the circumstances. The officer retreated down the ladder, and Crooks quickly took a shot toward Trump, and that\u2019s when Secret Service snipers shot him, according to two officials who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n FBI officials said Sunday that they were combing Crooks\u2019 background and social media activities while working to get access to his phone. The chatting app Discord, a social media platform popular with people playing online games, said Crooks appears to have had an account but used it rarely and not in the last several months. There\u2019s no evidence he used his account to promote violence or discuss his political views, a Discord spokesperson said.<\/p>\n Crooks\u2019 political leanings were not immediately clear. Records show Crooks was registered as a Republican voter in Pennsylvania, but federal campaign finance reports also show he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on Jan. 20, 2021, the day Biden was sworn into office.<\/p>\n Crooks graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022. In a video of the school\u2019s graduation ceremony posted online, Crooks can be seen crossing the stage to receive his diploma, appearing slight of build and wearing glasses. The school district said it will cooperate fully with investigators. His senior year, Crooks was among several students given an award for math and science, according to a\u00a0Tribune-Review<\/a>\u00a0story at the time.<\/p>\n Crooks tried out for the school\u2019s rifle team but was turned away because he was a bad shooter, said Frederick Mach, a current captain of the team who was a few years behind Crooks at the school.<\/p>\n Jason Kohler, who said he attended the same high school but did not share any classes with Crooks, said Crooks was bullied at school and sat alone at lunch time. Other students mocked him for the clothes he wore, which included hunting outfits, Kohler said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was bullied almost every day,\u201d Kohler told reporters. \u201cHe was just a outcast, and you know how kids are nowadays.\u201d<\/p>\n Crooks worked at a nursing home as a dietary aide, a job that generally involves food preparation. Marcie Grimm, the administrator of Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation, said in a statement she was \u201cshocked and saddened to learn of his involvement.\u201d Grimm added that Crooks had a clean background check when he was hired.<\/p>\n A blockade had been set up Sunday preventing traffic near Crooks\u2019 house, which is in an enclave of modest brick houses in the hills outside Pittsburgh and about an hour\u2019s drive from the site of the Trump rally. Police cars were stationed at an intersection near the house and officers were seen walking through the neighborhood.<\/p>\n Crooks used an AR-style rifle, which authorities said they believe was purchased by his father. Kevin Rojek, FBI special agent in charge in Pittsburgh, said that investigators do not yet know if he took the gun without his father\u2019s permission.<\/p>\n A video posted to social media and geolocated by AP shows Crooks wearing a gray t-shirt with a black American flag on the right arm lying motionless on the roof of a manufacturing plant just north of the Butler Farm Show grounds where Trump\u2019s rally was held.<\/p>\n The roof where Crooks lay was less than 150 meters (164 yards) from where Trump was speaking, a distance from which a decent marksman could reasonably hit a human-sized target. That is a distance at which U.S. Army recruits must hit a scaled human-sized silhouette to qualify with the M-16 rifle.<\/p>\n Images of Crooks\u2019 body reviewed by AP show he appears to have been wearing a T-shirt from Demolition Ranch,\u00a0a popular YouTube channel<\/a>\u00a0that regularly posts videos of its creator firing off handguns and assault rifles at targets that include human mannequins.<\/p>\n Matt Carriker, the Texas-based creator of Demolition Ranch, did not respond to a phone message or email on Sunday, but posted a photo of Crooks\u2019 bloody corpse wearing his brand\u2019s T-shirt on social media with the comment \u201cWhat the hell.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n