Trump gunman Thomas Crooks leaves behind pile of mysteries

Trump gunman Thomas Crooks leaves behind pile of mysteries
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A woman walks by a poster depicting Thomas Matthew Crooks, the man that attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump, during the third day of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 17, 2024. (AP)
Trump gunman Thomas Crooks leaves behind pile of mysteries
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A poster depicting Thomas Matthew Crooks, the man that attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump, stands on Water street during the third day of the 2024 Republican National Convention near the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on July 17, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 18 July 2024
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Trump gunman Thomas Crooks leaves behind pile of mysteries

Trump gunman Thomas Crooks leaves behind pile of mysteries
  • An FBI review of Crooks’ phone found he had searched for images of both President Joe Biden and Trump, and other famous figures in the days before the shooting, New York Times reports

BUTLER, Pennsylvania: Thomas Crooks was pacing next to a warehouse building outside the Butler Farm Show grounds as a crowd gathered for one of former President Donald Trump’s signature outdoor rallies.
Crooks had already been flagged as suspicious by law enforcement. By the time two police officers walked over to check him out, he was on the roof, belly crawling.
“He’s got a gun,” a bystander yelled.
One officer hoisted the other to the lip of the roof. As the officer pulled his head over the edge, a long-haired young man wearing glasses turned toward him, wielding an AR-15 -style rifle. The officer dropped back to the ground, the Butler County sheriff told Reuters.
Crooks, an introverted 20-year-old computer whiz who had just earned a spot at a college engineering program, turned back to his target about 400 feet away. He squeezed off several shots at Trump, clipping the former president’s ear, killing an audience member and wounding two others before Secret Service snipers on a nearby building killed him with counterfire.
This account of the first assassination attempt to injure a US president since 1981 is based on interviews with more than two dozen people, including law enforcement officials, Crooks’ school associates and witnesses who attended the rally, along with public records and news accounts.
Crooks fired his rifle at approximately 6:10 pm, according to a Reuters photographer at the rally. Trump winced and grabbed his right ear. Secret Service agents tackled the former president and some supporters dived for cover. A bullet hit what appeared to be the hydraulic line of a forklift that held a bank of speakers to the right side of the stage. Fluid spewed across the crowd and the lift’s arm collapsed. To the left, screams erupted where a spectator had been fatally shot.

As Secret Service agents tackled the former president, some supporters scrambled for safety. Others grabbed children and hustled toward the gates.
“The audience wasn’t like what you’d expect out of a crowd that just experienced something like this,” said Saurabh Sharma, a Trump supporter sitting near the front. “Everyone was really quiet. There were a few women crying. They were, you know, saying, ‘I can’t believe they tried to kill him’.”
Four days after the assassination attempt, a coherent picture of the moments before the shooting was emerging. But Crooks’ ideology and reasons for pulling the trigger remained a mystery.
A review of Crooks’ phone by the Federal Bureau of Investigation found he had searched for images of both President Joe Biden and Trump, as well as other famous figures, in the days before the shooting, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing US lawmakers briefed on the law enforcement investigation.
Crooks had been searching for the dates of Trump’s public appearances and of the Democratic National Convention, the report said. He had also looked up “major depressive disorder” on his phone, the Times said. Reuters was unable to independently confirm the report.
The shooting comes amid a years-long rise of political violence and threats in the US When that violence turns deadly, it has been more likely to be perpetrated by people on the American right, according to a Reuters analysis published last year. But the ideological motivation behind Saturday’s attack remains unclear.

Politically divided town

Crooks seemed to have a bright future, said two people who knew him at the Community College of Allegheny County, where he graduated in May with a two-year associate’s degree in engineering.
One college instructor told Reuters that she had gone back through his assignments this week, bewildered that the conscientious student who distinguished himself by going “above and beyond” could have turned murderous.
The instructor, who declined to be identified, said his homework responses were thoughtful and his emails polite. He excelled at an assignment to redesign a toy for people with disabilities. “He did a chess set for the blind. He 3D-printed it. He put the Braille on it. He talked to experts in the field,” she recalled. “He really took a lot of care.”
Crooks made less of an impression on classmates. Samuel Strotman, also enrolled in CCAC’s engineering program, took two online classes with Crooks. Strotman said Crooks never spoke in the lectures and had his camera turned off.
A college employee who knew Crooks said he was quiet but pleasant. “It’s just very, very, very unexpected,” the employee said. Crooks had seemed interested in pursuing a career in mechanical engineering, the employee said.
The college closed its engineering program on June 30. Crooks was planning to continue his engineering education at nearby Robert Morris University, that school confirmed.
Most recently, he worked as a dietary aide at a nursing home, where he “performed his job without concern,” the center said. The job was down the street from his home in Bethel Park, a middle-class suburb of Pittsburgh, where he had lived in a modest brick home with his parents and older sister.
At Bethel Park High School, where he graduated in 2022, he kept a low profile, according to classmates. One former classmate told The Philadelphia Inquirer that Crooks expressed conservative views in a history class where other students leaned liberal. Others said his views were never apparent. His photo was missing in his senior yearbook, with his name listed under “not pictured.” He enjoyed gaming and building computers, a classmate told Reuters.
Crooks’ town, Bethel Park, is divided almost down America’s political middle. In the 2020 election, Trump eked out a 65-vote margin in the borough of about 33,000 people, results show.
The political split showed up in the Crooks household. Thomas was a registered Republican. His father is a Libertarian and his mother is a Democrat, voter registration records show. Both are social workers. When Crooks was 17, he made a $15 donation to a political action committee earmarked for a Democratic turnout group, according to federal election data.
His school counselor Jim Knapp, who retired in 2022, said Crooks rarely came across his radar because he wasn’t a “needy type kid.” Knapp occasionally checked on him at lunch because he was sitting alone. “I’d say, ‘Do you want to sit with somebody?’ And he’d say, ‘No, I’m okay by myself,’” Knapp recalled.
Former high-school classmate Max Rich said Crooks was shy and “never seemed like the type” to commit such violence. He left virtually no digital footprint. He spent time on Discord, a gaming platform, but the company said it found “no evidence that it was used to plan this incident, promote violence, or discuss his political views.”
Crooks was a member of the local Clairton Sportsmen’s Club, a gun club. He was wearing a shirt advertising “Demolition Ranch,” a YouTube channel for firearms enthusiasts, when he was killed. After the shooting, Matt Carriker, a Texas veterinarian who runs the Demolition Ranch channel, posted a video on X saying he was “shocked and confused” to learn that Crooks was wearing his channel’s merchandise. “We keep politics out of it,” he said, adding that he did not know and had never met or communicated with Crooks.

Homemade bombs & ammunition

Crooks appeared to spend at least some time preparing for the Trump event. He bought ammunition on the day of the rally, stopping at a gun store in his hometown of Bethel Park to pick up 50 rounds, according to a joint bulletin issued this week by the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is leading the investigation.
He built three homemade bombs – two found in his car and another in his home, according to the bulletin, which was reviewed by Reuters. In the preceding months, the bulletin noted, Crooks had received “multiple packages, including some marked as possibly containing hazardous material.”




An Allegheny County Police Department Bomb Squad vehicle makes its way to the home of assassination suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks on July 14, 2024. Police said three homemade bombs were found – two in his car and another in his home. (Reuters)

At the rally, Crooks caught the attention of local law enforcement while pacing around the grounds before Trump took the stage. One officer called in a report of a suspicious person and snapped a photo that was distributed electronically to other officers at the scene, according to Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe, a Trump backer who was seated near the front of the rally as a special guest.
As two Butler Township Police officers responded to the call, people in the crowd already had noticed a man on the roof. Some yelled that he had a gun, according to crowd-shot video reviewed by Reuters. Slupe told Reuters the officer who initially pulled himself onto the roof had no time to unholster his gun when Crooks turned on him, leaving him no option but to drop back to the ground.
Secret Service officials have said their agency is responsible for securing the area within the event’s security perimeter; the building used by Crooks was just outside it. But some former agency officials and other security experts have disputed that contention, arguing that buildings with a direct sight line and within firing range of the former president should have been swept and under constant surveillance by the service’s sniper teams.
Local officials have bristled at any suggestions that town or county law enforcement was responsible for securing the building.
“The Butler Township Police Department had no security detail for this event,” Butler Township commissioner Edward Natali wrote in a Tuesday post on Facebook, noting that the township had seven officers on site solely for traffic duty. Even though the officer who confronted Crooks on the roof had to fall back, he added, the encounter “most likely forced the shooter to hurry his shots.”


Man admits arson attack on Ukraine-linked business in London

Man admits arson attack on Ukraine-linked business in London
Updated 25 October 2024
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Man admits arson attack on Ukraine-linked business in London

Man admits arson attack on Ukraine-linked business in London
  • Dylan Earl, 20, admitted a charge of aggravated arson on the premises belonging to a “Mr X” on an industrial estate in east London
  • Earl denied a further charge under the NSA of assisting a foreign intelligence service

LONDON: A man pleaded guilty on Friday to carrying out an arson attack on a London commercial property linked to Ukraine and an offense under the National Security Act in a case prosecutors have linked to Russia.
Dylan Earl, 20, admitted a charge of aggravated arson on the premises belonging to a “Mr X” on an industrial estate in east London in March, with the intent of destroying the building and being reckless as to whether lives would be endangered.
He also pleaded guilty to engaging in preparations for “an act endangering the life of a person or an act creating serious risk to the health or safety of the public in the United Kingdom” contrary to the new National Security Act (NSA) brought in to crack down on hostile activity by foreign states.
Earl denied a further charge under the NSA of assisting a foreign intelligence service. Three other men denied the aggravated arson charge.
Prosecutor Duncan Penny said the third charge against Earl would not be pursued, telling London’s Old Bailey court that the sentence for the other NSA offense attracted a longer maximum prison term of a life sentence.
He said the allegation would be taken into account when Earl was sentenced for the other offense.
Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in a statement when the men were charged that Earl was “alleged to have engaged in conduct targeting businesses which were linked to Ukraine in order to benefit the Russian state.”


Deadliest storm for Philippines in 2024 wreaks havoc in country’s northeast

Deadliest storm for Philippines in 2024 wreaks havoc in country’s northeast
Updated 20 sec ago
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Deadliest storm for Philippines in 2024 wreaks havoc in country’s northeast

Deadliest storm for Philippines in 2024 wreaks havoc in country’s northeast
  • At least 46 dead, 320,000 displaced, most in southeastern parts of Luzon
  • Trami is the 11th and deadliest tropical cyclone for the Philippines in 2024

MANILA: A tropical storm has wreaked havoc in the Philippines, leaving dozens of people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

Trami, locally known as Kristine, has caused severe flooding and landslides across Luzon, the country’s most populous island, as well as in Visayas islands and parts of Mindanao, along the Philippines’ eastern coast.

Even before it made landfall in the province of Isabela on Thursday, the storm was already bringing torrential rains, pummeling several regions, especially in the southeastern parts of Luzon such as Bicol and Calabarzon, where most of the casualties have been reported.

At least 46 people have been killed, while 20 remain missing, according to the latest data from the Philippines Office of Civil Defense. Most of the deaths were caused by drowning, electrocution, and landslides.

Nearly 320,000 people have been displaced, sheltering in evacuation centers or staying with relatives and friends.

Most of the casualties have been reported in Naga City and Albay and Caramoran municipalities.

Ray Anthony Austria, resident of Guinobatan in Albay, said government emergency responders have not been able to reach some areas, as landslides have blocked access.

“It seems that no one was really prepared for this amount of rain … There is still confusion, there is still lack of communication. I think everyone is just overwhelmed with the situation,” he told Arab News over the phone.

“There are so many communities waiting for help, but their local governments are helpless. It would endanger a lot of rescuers if they (went into) those communities … We did it on foot, and we were able to reach them. Some of them need a lot of food, water, and clothes because many of them were not able to save any of their belongings.”

The Philippines is the country most at risk from natural disasters, according to the 2024 World Risk Report.

Every year, millions of Filipinos are affected by storms and typhoons, which have lately been more unpredictable and extreme due to the changing climate.

Trami is the 11th and deadliest tropical cyclone to hit the country in 2024.

Last month, more than a dozen people were killed when Typhoon Yagi, locally known as Enteng, also hit the country’s east.

Austria, who witnessed both, said that Trami was much worse.

“In Naga and neighboring towns, many areas, houses are still submerged in waters, some at least waist-deep … In the town of Tinago, the water reached the second floor in some houses or around 15 feet,” he said.

“During Typhoon Enteng, there was also flooding, and some areas were underwater for a few days, but it is worse now … There were many people who never had to evacuate before, but this time they were forced to because of the amount of water. It’s worse.”


North Korea says any deployment to aid Russia would be lawful

North Korea says any deployment to aid Russia would be lawful
Updated 25 October 2024
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North Korea says any deployment to aid Russia would be lawful

North Korea says any deployment to aid Russia would be lawful
  • Ukraine, the United States and other Western allies say they have evidence that Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to Russia for possible deployment against Ukraine
  • Previously both Pyongyang and the Kremlin had dismissed such reports as baseless rumors

SEOUL: North Korea said on Friday any move to send its troops to assist Russia in its war in Ukraine would be in line with international law, although it stopped short of confirming that such a deployment had taken place.
Ukraine, the United States and other Western allies say they have evidence that Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to Russia for possible deployment against Ukraine.
Previously both Pyongyang and the Kremlin had dismissed such reports as baseless
rumors.
But when asked about the reports on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin
stopped short of denying them.
Ukraine says North Korean participation in the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Feb. 2022, could amount to the crime of aggression under international law.
In a statement reported by North Korea’s KCNA news agency, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Jong Gyu said the foreign ministry was not directly involved in matters handled by the defense ministry and would not comment directly on any deployment.
However, he added: “If there is such a thing that the world media is talking about, I think it will be an act conforming with the regulations of international law.”
North Korea and Russia have developed closer relations since the war began, including signing a new mutual defense pact. Ukraine and Western countries have previously accused North Korea of supplying weapons to Russia, which Pyongyang and Moscow have denied.
Putin said on Thursday it was up to Moscow and Pyongyang how to conduct their mutual defense agreement, and accused the West of escalating the Ukraine war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Russia plans to deploy North Korean troops to the battlefield starting Oct. 27-28, citing intelligence reports.
Ukrainian military intelligence said on Thursday that around 12,000 North Korean troops, including 500 officers and three generals, were already in Russia, and training was taking place on five military bases.
The United States has said it has seen evidence of North Korean troops in Russia, and South Korean lawmakers said about 3,000 soldiers had been sent, with more to follow.


Blinken sees ‘real urgency’ for ‘diplomatic resolution’ in Lebanon

Blinken sees ‘real urgency’ for ‘diplomatic resolution’ in Lebanon
Updated 25 October 2024
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Blinken sees ‘real urgency’ for ‘diplomatic resolution’ in Lebanon

Blinken sees ‘real urgency’ for ‘diplomatic resolution’ in Lebanon
  • Jordan’s foreign minister calls for pressure on Israel to end ‘ethnic cleansing’ during meeting with Blinken

LONDON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged Friday to work with “real urgency” for a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon and urged Israel to spare civilians, but stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire.
“We have a sense of real urgency in getting to a diplomatic resolution and the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, such that there can be real security along the border between Israel and Lebanon,” Blinken said after meeting Lebanon’s prime minister in London, referring to calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah.
Jordan’s foreign minister on Friday called for pressure on Israel to end “ethnic cleansing,” in strong remarks as he met in London.
Deploring the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, Ayman Safadi told Blinken: “We do see ethnic cleansing taking place, and that has got to stop.”


Ex-wife of Muhammad Ali in Afghanistan: Taliban govt

Ex-wife of Muhammad Ali in Afghanistan: Taliban govt
Updated 25 October 2024
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Ex-wife of Muhammad Ali in Afghanistan: Taliban govt

Ex-wife of Muhammad Ali in Afghanistan: Taliban govt
  • During the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, public executions in sports stadiums were common
  • Khalilah Camacho-Ali is opening a stadium in a country where women are barred from sport

Kabul: A former wife of legendary US boxer Muhammad Ali arrived in the Afghan capital, a Taliban government official said Friday, to reportedly open a stadium in a country where women are barred from sports.
The head of the Taliban government’s sports directorate, Ahmadullah Wasiq, told AFP that Khalilah Camacho-Ali, who was married to the boxer for a decade from 1967, had arrived in Kabul.
State media cited the directorate as saying she was in the city “to build a sports stadium to be named ‘Pirozi’ (victory in Dari) and a sports association named after Muhammad Ali.”
Born Belinda Boyd in 1950 in the United States, Camacho-Ali, like her world champion boxer ex-husband, converted to Islam after they married.
Muhammad Ali himself visited Kabul in 2002, a year after the US forces overthrew the first Taliban government, visiting a girls’ school in his role as a United Nations peace ambassador.
Since the Taliban government came to power in Afghanistan in 2021, they have imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law, with women bearing the brunt of restrictions the United Nations have called “gender apartheid,” including blocking women from participating in sports.
During the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, public executions in sports stadiums were common.
Public corporal punishment has continued since their return to power and at least two public executions have been held in a sports stadium.
The authorities have recently set restrictions on combat sports as well, saying free fighting such as in Mixed Martial Arts was un-Islamic.
Camacho-Ali is a martial artist, as well as an actress and author, according to her website.
Ali was born Cassius Clay in the southeastern state of Kentucky and is known as both a sporting great and for his role in fighting for civil rights for African Americans. He died in 2016.