What we must not do in the fog of war

Thomas Matthew Crooks and a victim is dead. Donald Trump lives. We have obligations to truth, not wild panic.

The media has not caught up with the story of a shooter nearly assassinating former President Donald Trump. I have not caught up with the wall-to-wall coverage of this awful thing. We do know that the killer’s name is Thomas Matthew Crooks. He is 20 years old, from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, and graduated high school in 2022. He killed one victim, likely from one the bullets intended to kill Trump.

Image: Screen capture from YouTube, Sky News

A good amalgam of what’s known is written up in The Dispatch morning newsletter. I saw a photo of Crooks—a skinny white kid. Witnesses said he “bear-crawled” up a building about 400 feet from the rally, and that they attempted to alert law enforcement. I’ve seen video of the counter-sniper team—people who weren’t there but from the video claim that the counter-sniper team saw the shooter before he opened fire.

The evidence we have—lots of video, audio, and many, many photos—seems to indicate around eight shots were fired. Originally, it was being reported last night that the shooter was up to 300 yards away, which would have made a head shot at that distance something for a skilled marksman—an actual assassin. But this morning, coverage, with maps, is showing it was about 400 feet away, which is a shot anyone who has practiced with an AR-15 and scope can accomplish. In any case, the bullet was just millimeters away from killing Trump.

The counter-sniper team immediately opened fire; it appears the first two or three shots were from Crooks’ rifle, and the rest were the counter-sniper team engaging, and probably killing, Crooks.

Reporting on Crooks is spotty, so far. He carried no ID, so even the New York Times did not break the story of his identity until the wee hours of the morning. The little that’s known includes Crooks apparently gave a small amount ($15) to ActBlue, a Democratic Party-aligned fundraising platform on Joe Biden’s inauguration day in 2021. Public records also apparently show that Crooks registered as a Republican only a short time later. We have no idea of a specific motive, though we can be pretty sure attempting to kill Donald Trump was an intentional act.

What we must not do this morning is jump, or even crawl, to wild conclusions, or entertain vast conspiracies.

For example: asking why law enforcement didn’t act faster when alerted a man with a gun is climbing to the roof of an adjacent building at the rally—fine, ask. But don’t assume there’s some answer beyond the confusion of the moment, not until a real timeline is established.

Don’t assume the FBI is acting in concert with the Biden campaign, to cover up critical details, or hamper, bias, or shut down an investigation of this. Such a coverup would be practically impossible, and if even hinted at, would end the Biden administration. Wait for facts.

Don’t link the heads of agencies, who work for Biden, to the acts of people on the ground at the rally. Mike Cernovich, who regularly engaged in conspiracy-flinging, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, the head of the Secret Service’s “about” text, including her last employment, which was as head of global security for PepsiCo. Elon Musk replied “So before being in charge of protecting the President, she was guarding bags of Cheetos …” Even though this is objectively true, and it’s widely known PepsiCo and Frito Lay offered counseling for employees in 2016 to cope with Trump’s election, why would that have any effect on the agency’s ability to protect the Republican candidate for president, himself a former POTUS?

Musk re-tweeted a thread from blue-check user Blake Hall, whose profile says he is the CEO of id.me (I verified this on LinkedIn, id.me is an identity service provider for the U.S. government, including the VA), and also an Iraq vet. Hall claims “I was the Sniper Employment Officer for my battalion and led hundreds of combat missions. There were major security lapses in the security plan that allowed a shooter to engage President Trump from ~130 meters - an easy shot.” Hall concluded “mission failure.”

We should not assume some nefarious intention behind whatever lapse (and let’s be honest, there was a huge lapse) allowed this. Obviously, the young man who nearly assassinated Donald Trump should not have been able to climb to the roof of a building just 400 feet from Trump’s stage carrying a rifle. We don’t know enough of the “why” to make any claims.

Also, Musk finally did what we all knew: he “fully endorsed” Trump.

For those of us heading to church this morning: we should not spoil the spirit of fellowship in our worship with political talk. Yes, pray for Donald Trump, even if you would never vote for him. Comfort anyone who is mentally or emotionally shaken by these events. But for God’s sake, don’t bring up the politics, or discuss how this makes Trump a “martyr” or as “tough as Teddy Roosevelt” (I’ve seen all those comments online).

Donald Trump is the most divisive figure in American politics in any of our lifetimes. Talk of someone trying to assassinate him has been floating around for months, even years. I’ve heard it myself. I didn’t think it would happen, until it did. It’s easy to slide into your own bias and reality distortion bubble. Resist that.

A victim who did nothing but support a candidate for president is dead. A young man who attempted to kill the candidate is dead. Donald Trump lives. I will make one prescription here: I think it would be incredibly healing if, even for 15 seconds, both Donald Trump and President Biden stood together, somewhere, side by side, and shook hands, in public, before television cameras. I’m not talking about unity here, I’m talking about humanity.

I was not going to mention this, but I feel I should. It’s been reported how Joe Biden, in a donor call, said “it’s time to put Donald Trump in the bullseye.” We all know that’s how people talk. The Biden campaign has been running a $50 million anti-Trump ad campaign all over television and social media.

The campaign has immediately suspended this campaign, as quickly as can be technically accomplished. They did this because someone tried to kill Trump. I think we can safely assume that Biden was not indicating violence against Trump. Besides, the Supreme Court ruled that Biden had plenty of unrestricted power to order it himself should he care to. Our nation doesn’t work that way. If you think it does, or should, you need to take some time to examine your sources of information and your own biases.

Trump supporters are not the enemy, worthy of killing or dying to stop them. We are all Americans who vote in elections. We do not decide elections with guns.

We are not in a war, but the fog of war is corrosive. We cannot lose our humanity toward one another. I fear we are much to close to doing exactly that.