Bethel Park, Pennsylvania – A criminal profiler said last week’s assassination attempt on former President Trump by Thomas Matthew Crooks in western Pennsylvania was likely not politically motivated or a random act of violence.
Keith Howard, chief deputy sheriff and criminal profiler for the Morgan County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia, spoke to Fox News Digital about the behavioral science behind the attempted assassination of Thomas Matthew Crooks.
Howard said Trump’s shooting was the result of “systematic thinking” rather than random violence.
“No matter how disruptive these events may have been to our observations, these are really methodical thinkers,” he said. “Don’t think of it as an impulsive act. They don’t typically wake up in the morning and think, ‘There’s a presidential candidate in my county, in my district, so I’m going to go and kill him.'”
Former US political science classmate of Trump shooter describes conversation with would-be assassin Thomas Crooks
An undated file photo of Thomas Matthew Crookes. (Source: Fox News Digital)
“In any case, if you look at this type of person and you think, ‘Well, maybe he was lonely, maybe he didn’t have a lot of friends, maybe he wasn’t close,’ that doesn’t mean he can’t think that way,” he said.
Howard said an FBI investigation may reveal this was a crime of opportunity.
“And if you do this behavioral analysis, if he was looking for something notorious, he was looking for Trump rallies, he was looking for the Democratic National Convention, and when he found out one of them was going to be in his backyard, it all just became real for him.”
“Some of these are [FBI] We collect this information.”
A week after Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at a Pennsylvania rally, two men believed to be FBI agents spoke with Crooks’ neighbor. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
Howard also said he wouldn’t be surprised if the FBI ultimately found Crooks was not politically motivated.
“Let’s look at what history has to say about the event we’re looking at and what the research has to say about it,” Howard said.
Security experts criticize Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s ‘sloping roof’ excuse
Howard cited research conducted by the US Secret Service in the 1980s, saying there were no profiles of assassins or would-be assassins.
“You can live from 16 to 60,” he says, “and that rarely includes mental illness.”
Two men believed to be FBI agents spoke with neighbors of Trump gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks a week after he opened fire at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
Howard said the FBI’s behavioral science unit might conduct an indirect personality assessment, which would involve interviewing as many people as possible who know Crooks using a standard list of questions.
Experts say the questions will focus on Crooks’ personality and character traits before he engaged in aggressive behavior toward Trump.
“The methodology is to ask the same people the same questions so they can get a comprehensive response,” he said. “They’ll compare that to the crime scene information they have and start building an action.”
“They’ll start to piece together what they think about the criminal’s behavior,” he added. “Once they have as much information as they can get, they’ll start to move into a typology of motivation: what might motivate this type of person?”
The home of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the attempted assassin who tried to assassinate former President Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last week. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
The FBI said agents had access to Crooks’ cellphone and laptop, and Howard said access to Crooks’s phone and computers would become “extensive” as the investigation progresses.
“The cell phone is much more connected to his mind,” he said. “If we had pictures and plans, that would go a long way to understanding what a criminal does.”
“There’s also geofencing that can be tracked,” he said. “I know that’s a top priority for the federal government.”
State police anti-shooting snipers patrol the area around Laube Hall on Thursday in Freeport, Pennsylvania, for a memorial for Corey Comperatore, the 50-year-old hero who was shot and killed by an attempted Trump assassin in Butler. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
Crooks was shot and killed by a sniper on July 13 after firing a volley of shots at a Trump rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler.
A classmate of Crooks’, who graduated from Bethel Park High School in 2022, said the 20-year-old was “quiet” with only a few friends and was a “loner.”
One of Crooks’ classmates at Bethel Park High School said he was an avid gamer who enjoyed building computers.
Click here to get the FOX News app
Records show Crooks was a registered Republican, while his father was a registered Libertarian and his mother a Democrat.
Investigators have not yet determined a motive for the assassination attempt.
