Trump Rally Shooter’s Digital Clues: Investigating Mental Health and Motive

Thomas Matthew Crooks and Ex-President Donald Trump
Thomas Matthew Crooks and Ex-President Donald Trump. Credit | Getty images

United States – Thomas Matthew Crooks could have been suffering from an unknown psychological issue, they speculated, including some form of depression, prior to firing shots at Donald Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania.

While there is no direct evidence that Crooks, 20, ever consulted a health care professional for mental disorder, the investigation has found that he has used the digital platform to seek information on major depressive disorder, as reported by New York Post.

It is also asserted that Crooks falls under the category of either loner or outcast whose life is full of loneliness or rejection besides suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, mechanic and technical precision, especially with guns, according to some sources.

Thus far, the probe revealed that his social media footprint was almost nonexistent, meaning investigators are going through his computer equipment trying to determine why he aimed to kill former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday.

Social Media and Digital Footprint

But the search has been a slow process because authorities have to go through a lot of material to make their summaries—about 4. 5 terabytes of data across a laptop, several USB drives, and two cellphones, sources revealed.

Investigations carried out on one of his phones have not yet turned up a clear motive for this young killer, but Google search history on one of the phones showed that he had a general interest in prominent persons, celebrities, and leaders of any political stripe.

Besides searching for terms like Trump and President Biden, Crooks also searched for FBI Director Christopher Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and a British royal – the New York Times did not say which one.

Challenges in Uncovering Motive

He was able to find a photo of both Biden and Trump inside his phone, along with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N. Y. ), House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), and former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani, as reported by sources, as reported by New York Post.

Clinical depression is also known as major depressive disorder (MDD), and it is a common but not untreatable mental disorder that is known to affect every person regardless of their age. The main features are a low depressive mood and low evaluated self-estimate with a decrease of interest in actions that were previously appreciated and lasting for at least two consecutive weeks, as described by the Mayo Clinic.