The FBI identified the shooter, who is dead, as Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. A motive wasn't clear.

The FBI identified the shooter, who is dead, as Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. A motive was not clear.

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Bethel Park is a predominantly white, relatively well-to-do city in the southern reaches of greater Pittsburgh. The site of the rally, Butler, is about an hour’s drive north of Pittsburgh.

Pennsylvania voter records listed a Thomas Matthew Crooks with the same address and birth date as a registered Republican, though it was not clear from the records when that was put in place.

  • pyre@lemmy.world
    91·
    1 month ago

    this is speculation but

    disillusioned youth, no prospects, small hope in progressive cause (probably Bernie), gets screwed by the party, gets further disillusioned, sees TFG, thinks it’s good to have an outsider to show these establishment politicians what’s what, registers republican, gets easily reeled in to the far right pipeline, becomes interested in Q stuff, gets obsessed with pedophilia and Epstein, sees recent Epstein revelations about TFG, ends up where too many people end up in the US: full of anger and hate with easy access to guns.

    could be far off, but i wouldn’t be surprised.