Just a week after Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, coming close to assassinating former President Trump and killing firefighter Corey Comperatore, the 20-year-old’s neighbors are grappling with the reality of the evil that lurks on their streets.
“It’s pure terror. [Trump] “If he had turned his head, his head would have been blown off. And it was made around the corner from my house,” said a neighbor who lives about the same distance from Crooks’ house as the gunman was from the president at the time of the shooting.
“There was evil around the corner,” she said Tuesday, “and we will forever be scarred by what happened and by what happened close to us.” [it was]”
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A view of Hilliard Road near the home of 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who plotted to assassinate former President Trump on July 14, 2024, in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. (Reuters/Carlos Osorio)
Two suspected FBI agents entered the home of Trump shooter Thomas Crooks. (Derek Shook/Fox News Digital)
“Evil was just around the corner.”
Another woman who regularly jogs in the neighborhood said she passed Crooks several times over the summer in their quiet neighborhood, and despite her attempts to “look and smile and say hello,” he “just looked up as if no one was walking by.”
The woman said she was shocked to hear the news that a shooting had happened just 40 minutes from her home, and that the whole thing became even more “surreal” when she found out the shooter lived much closer to home than she thought.
“When I first thought about the shooter being in Butler, I thought, ‘Wow, that’s in my backyard.’ It turns out it was much closer. All of a sudden it was my neighbor,” she said.
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On July 14, 2024, a large police presence was present outside the home of Thomas Matthew Crooks on Milford Drive in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. (Mazza/NurPhoto via The Associated Press)
An elderly woman living further down Crooks Street said she didn’t speak much to the attacker but regularly helped him with household chores.
“I asked Tom, ‘Can you rake the leaves? Can you shovel the driveway?’ If there’s mail, I’ll go and get it,” she said. “I’m shocked, but I’m also angry that this happened.”
Though reporters and police vehicles still dot the neighborhood of brick homes, four residents who spoke to Fox News Digital expressed relief that things were finally starting to calm down, saying police evacuated the residents living closest to the Crooks home on Milford Drive for 24 hours after the shooting.
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Investigators visit Thomas Crooks’ neighbors. (Derek Shook/Fox News Digital)
The journalists were not told where to go, only that they needed to be evacuated because of a bomb investigation, they said, while they were herded into a remote military post on a nearby hill, with police vehicles filling the narrow streets they walked through.
“My wife and I used to watch a lot of police shows on TV,” another neighbor said Tuesday. “I would always jokingly ask her, ‘Why don’t the police just walk into our neighborhood and break down our door?’ … The police presence was huge.”
The neighbor said that two FBI agents had questioned him for about 30 minutes a few days earlier, but that he “never imagined they would have searched that thoroughly” in the neighborhood.
“They wanted to know if I had noticed any unusual behavior or sounds, if anyone had come out of the house. [in the neighborhood]”They were asking me if there was anyone in the neighborhood who knew more than I did,” the neighbor said.
Investigators visited the Crooks home for about an hour on Monday, one of at least three times they’ve spoken with the family over the past week. Packages were left on the doorstep for at least a day before being brought inside, and mail carriers did not appear to have placed any mail in the family’s mailbox.
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Thomas Brian Crooks, father of Matthew Crooks, the man who attempted to assassinate President Trump, leaves a supermarket in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, on July 22, 2024. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
Investigators visited each residence, including multiple knocks on the door of the couple, who were on vacation and could not be reached. When they returned from their trip on Tuesday, they told Fox News Digital that they had never seen any members of the Crooks family, even though they live just a few doors down.
Kelly Little, who lives directly opposite the Crooks’ house, said the six-month-old dog was quickly socialised by the “hundreds” of reporters and police officers who visited the area.
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Little said children would usually be playing in the neighborhood, and although the barricades blocking Milford Street were removed this week, the community has yet to return to its usual bustling atmosphere.
One neighbor said the neighborhood is “very close,” and “in any case, none of the neighbors seemed to know the family or their notorious son personally.”
“We still feel very safe around here,” one neighbor said. “We still feel safe. It’s just … it’s a shame that Bethel Park has become known for this.”
