Bethel Park School District refuted reports about the would-be Trump assassin.
The man who shot at former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13 was never a member of a local high school’s rifle team and wasn’t bullied, despite previous reports, according to the Bethel Park School District.
In an updated statement published on its website on July 20, the school district issued a comment titled “correcting the record,” which disputed several claims about Thomas Matthew Crooks, the gunman identified by the FBI, in news reports over the past week. Previously, the district confirmed that he had attended Bethel Park High School in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, and had graduated in 2022.
“It has been reported that Thomas Crooks was a member of the Bethel Park High School rifle team or tried out for it but was dismissed due to poor performance or because the coach had character concerns. Thomas Crooks was never a member of the school’s rifle team and we have no record of him trying out,” the statement reads.
The coach of the team, according to the school, does not have any memory of meeting Mr. Crooks. The suspect may have “informally attended a practice, took a shot, and never returned,” but the school does not “have any record of that happening,” according to the statement.
Multiple classmates and students who knew Mr. Crooks, 20, told media outlets in the past week that he was bullied and suggested that it may have played a role in the assassination attempt.
However, the school district contends that those claims are a “painful misconception.” District records of Mr. Crooks’s academic performance, disciplinary history, attendance, and more suggest that he “excelled academically, regularly attended school, and had no disciplinary incidents, including those related to bullying or threats,” the school district stated.
“Mr. Crooks was known as a quiet, bright young man who generally got along with his teachers and classmates,” the school district said in the statement.
Several reports, meanwhile, have claimed that Mr. Crooks once made a threat against the high school. However, according to the school district, there was an incident involving threats against administration by another student in 2019.
