Shooter’s Classmate Claims Crooks Was ‘Linked’ To ‘School Shooting Plot’ Years Ago

Thomas Crooks, the disturbed young man who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump on Saturday, was previously linked to a school shooting plot that was recently uncovered as part of the investigation into his motives, his former classmate claims.

The Western Journal reported on conversations authorities have had with a classmate who knew Crooks during that period at Bethel Park High School. Vincent Taormina revealed that the 20-year-old’s name was often circulated after school officials got wind of a supposed plot to commit a mass shooting that year. The student, Vincent Taormina, said, “A name that kept coming up was ‘Thomas.'” Taormina did not offer any additional details other than to say the incident occurred during his freshman year at Bethel Park.

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Crooks, who graduated with the class of 2022, would likely have been implicated during the 2016-2017 school year based on his age, the outlet estimated. “Everyone’s going through Snapchat, everyone’s texting everybody, everyone saying this, that and … Everybody was saying it was Thomas who made a threat and it was that friend group,” Taormina told Fox News.

“Everyone was mainly blaming the friend group, but a name that kept coming up was ‘Thomas,'” he added, saying that Crooks was out of school for several days after the school shooting probe. “It wasn’t anything like a suspension or anything,” he said. “It was just a couple of days.”

The story by Taormina has not been confirmed by any other former classmates or officials at the school but may serve as another data point about how or why Crooks failed to appear on authorities’ radar prior to Saturday. The former student said Crooks was considered pessimistic about both Republicans and Democrats, an opinion that could be reinforced by the recent discovery of photos of both Trump and President Joe Biden on his phone. Other politicians he was unhappy with included Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Taormina added that Crooks at one point told him he was disgusted at him for being a “Hispanic Trump supporter.”

“I brought up the fact that I’m Hispanic and I’m for Trump, and he said, ‘Well, you’re Hispanic, so shouldn’t you hate Trump?’ And I was like, ‘No. He’s great.’ … And he called me stupid. Or insinuated that I was stupid,” Taormina recalled, adding that he thought of Crooks as a “know-it-all.”

Just hours before the rally, Crooks’ parents alerted local police that their son was missing and may have reported that he stole the AR-15 rifle owned by his father, a registered libertarian. Further investigation showed that Crooks was spotted hours before the event’s planned start time and he was seen scouring the field. Shortly before the event, authorities photographed him crawling along the ground with a rangefinder, typically used by hunters and shooters to determine their distance from a target.

He ultimately nicked the ear of President Trump with a round, killed 50-year-old father Corey Comperatore and seriously injured two others on stage that day.

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