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Trump shooter Thomas Crooks' parents unlikely to face criminal charges, experts say
Questions about whether the parents of would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks could face charges resulting from their son’s shooting crimes have arisen as officials release more information about his secluded personality and lack of a social life.
“You’d have to prove in some way beyond a reasonable doubt that [Crooks’ parents] aided and abetted his ability to plan this attempted assassination or, in some way, knew what he was doing and provided him some means to do it,” Pennsylvania-based attorney Matthew Mangino of Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly and George told Fox News Digital. “That would be difficult to prove, I would think, beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Mangino added, however, that “civil liability is a completely different story.”
Pursuing civil action against Crooks’ parents would require “a preponderance of the evidence that … they could have or should have intervened to protect, not only the former president, but the public,” as well as the victim who died.
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An undated image of Thomas Matthew Crooks. (Handout via AFP)
Crooks apparently researched Oxford High School shooter Ethan Crumbley sometime prior to the assassination attempt, a source familiar with the matter previously told Fox News Digital. In Crumbley’s case, both of his parents were charged and convicted on four counts of involuntary manslaughter related to their son’s crimes. One major difference between the Crumbley case and the Crooks case, however, is Crooks’ age.
Crooks was 20 when he was fatally shot by snipers while carrying out the assassination attempt on July 13. The FBI said during a Monday press conference call that Crooks’ father legally owned the AR-15 Crooks used to fire at the president and transferred ownership to his son sometime prior to the shooting.
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Pictures of Thomas Mathew Crooks taken by a sniper. (Sen. Ron Johnson’s Office)
Crooks also purchased 25 firearms and six chemical precursors “of materials used to create the explosive devices recovered in the subject’s vehicle and home” after the assassination attempt, said Kevin Rojek, special agent in charge at the FBI Pittsburgh field office.
Crooks’ parents apparently told investigators that he had always been interested in science experiments, so they were used to getting packages addressed to their son at home.
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The parents of Thomas Crooks, Matthew and Mary Crooks, return to their home in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, July 24, 2024. (Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
Crooks’ father, Matthew Crooks, was seen on Monday leaving a Pittsburgh office building that houses two law firms.
He declined to answer questions about whether his family had noticed warning signs before his son’s assassination attempt.
The shooter’s father previously told Fox News Digital that “We’re going to release a statement when our legal counsel advises us to do so – until then, we have no comment. We just want to try to take care of ourselves right now. Please, just give us our space.”
Matthew Crooks waits outside an office building in Pittsburgh, Monday, July 29, 2024. Matthew Crooks is the father of would-be Trump assassin, Thomas Crooks. (DWS for Fox News Digital)
Brian Stewart, trial attorney at Parker & McConkie in Utah, said “no one” should require parents to supervise an adult “at all times (or at any time).”
“Based on the updated information the FBI has provided, it appears unlikely that Crooks’ parents will face criminal or civil liability for their son’s actions.”
Rojek said Crooks’ parents have been “extremely cooperative” with the FBI so far in their investigation. FBI officials also do not have evidence suggesting Crooks worked with any coconspirators to carry out his plan.
Investigators visit Thomas Crooks’ neighbor. (Derek Shook/Fox News Digital)
“If the ongoing investigation were to reveal that Crooks’ father transferred the AR-15 to his son illegally or had some reason to expect it would be used to commit a crime, then criminal charges or civil claims could be possible,” Stewart said. “However, so far, the FBI reports that they have not found any information tying anyone else to the attack and do not believe that his parents had any indications of his plans to attempt to assassinate Trump.”
Stewart also said that if “any proof is found that the parents were in any way aware of the son’s plans to assassinate Trump, or if the parents were reckless in ignoring any alarming behavior or activities, a case against the parents could be made, and its success would obviously depend on the strength of the evidence.”
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FBI agents visited the home of would-be Trump assassin Thomas Crooks’ home in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. (AFP | Reuters/Aaron Josefczyk)
Nicole Brenecki, a New York City-based attorney, also pointed to Crooks’ age as a potential issue in filing criminal charges against his parents.
“Following the sentencing of James and Jennifer Crumbley in the Michigan school shooting case, the DA may consider bringing charges against the father of the Trump shooter. The biggest weakness of such a case would be Matthew Thomas Crooks’ age. He was almost 21 at the time of the shooting,” Brenecki said.
The FBI on Monday described Crooks as a “loner” and “highly intelligent,” citing his college education and his ability to hold a full-time job. Officials are still working to determine Crooks’ motive in the assassination attempt against Trump.
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A man was sentenced to 115 years in prison on Monday for the fatal shooting of a New York City police officer who had ordered him to step out of a car in Queens in 2024.
More than 200 people, mostly police officers, packed a courtroom in State Supreme Court in Queens to hear Justice Michael Aloise sentence Guy Rivera in the killing of Jonathan Diller, 31, who was promoted to the rank of detective after his death.
“It took me five minutes to calculate these numbers,” Justice Aloise said. “It’s going to take you a lifetime to calculate the damage you did and the grief that you caused.”
He said that Mr. Rivera had determined his own fate “the second you pulled that trigger.”
Detective Diller’s wife, Stephanie, who sat among the officers in the courtroom, read a statement in court just before the sentencing, speaking of the pain and loss that she and her son, Ryan, now 3, have suffered. Ms. Diller, who testified during the trial, spoke directly to Mr. Rivera as he sat at the defense table.
“This is the last moment I will allow you to take from me,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks. “You took my husband, Jonathan. You took the future we planned together. The life we were building, the years we were supposed to share together.”
“What you did to Jonathan” she said, “gave me and our son a life sentence without him.”
A jury found Mr. Rivera, 36, guilty earlier this month on four charges, including aggravated manslaughter, in Detective Diller’s death, but acquitted him of the most serious charge, first-degree murder. The decision, after a three-week trial in Queens, stunned the dozens of police officers present when it was announced in the courtroom on April 1.
To find him guilty of murder, the jury had to decide whether they believed Mr. Rivera had intended to kill Detective Diller when he pointed his gun at him in the Far Rockaway section of Queens on March 25, 2024. They ultimately determined that Mr. Rivera had intentionally pulled the trigger, but did not intend to kill him.
Mr. Rivera did not speak at his sentencing at the advice of one of his lawyers, Jamal Johnson, who told Justice Aloise they would appeal the conviction.
Mr. Johnson, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society, said after the hearing that Justice Aloise’s statement at sentencing showed the court “had already made up its mind about sentencing well before the trial was conducted.”
During the trial, prosecutors said that before the fatal shooting, Detective Diller’s partner, Sgt. Sasha Rosen, saw Mr. Rivera and another man, Lindy Jones, come out of a store and get into a car. Mr. Rivera had an L-shaped object in the pocket of his sweatshirt that resembled a firearm, prosecutors said.
Detective Diller approached the vehicle and asked Mr. Rivera repeatedly to comply with orders. When he did not, Sergeant Rosen reached in to pull him out of the car.
Then Mr. Rivera fired, the jury found. The defense argued that Mr. Rivera’s gun went off accidentally when Sergeant Rosen pulled him out, striking Detective Diller. Prosecutors said Mr. Rivera then turned his gun on Sergeant Rosen, but the weapon jammed.
Justice Aloise did not allow the jury to see video that, the defense contended, showed Mr. Rivera’s arm was broken during his confrontation with the police.
That evidence would have directly undermined the prosecution’s contention that Mr. Rivera was physically able to pull the trigger when he tried to shoot Sergeant Rosen, they said.
In all, Mr. Rivera was sentenced to 25 years to life for the aggravated manslaughter conviction; 40 years to life for the attempted murder of Sergeant Rosen; and 25 years to life for each of the gun possession counts. He was ordered to serve those sentences consecutively.
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On Monday, after the sentencing, dozens of police officers smiled and embraced one another as they left the courtroom. The prosecutors who tried the case and Melinda Katz, the Queens district attorney, hugged several of Detective Diller’s family members.
Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, called the sentence “obviously the right result, for him and for anyone who kills a New York City police officer.”
Outside the courthouse, members of the Police Benevolent Association, the police officers’ union, said they were pleased with the sentence.
“The verdict in this case did not send the right message to the Diller family and every police officer who wears the uniform,” said Patrick Hendry, the union president, who spoke at the foot of the courthouse stairwell, backed by nearly 100 police officers.
“But this sentence,” he said, “it sent the right message.”
Say bonjour to the return of “Beauty and the Beast.” The national tour has been in Boston before, but this is the first time in 25 years that Disney is behind the production.
Kyra Belle Johnson stars as Belle, the bookworm who doesn’t quite fit into her quiet village.
“I think part of treating her like a real person is finding the humor and finding the faults and breathing and being present on stage every night,” Johnson said.
As Mrs. Potts, Kathy Voytko embodies the beloved teapot.
“When I was talking to my daughters about, ‘How do you feel about mom being gone for the better part of a year?’ They said, ‘Well, geez, mom, we’re gonna miss you, but it’s Mrs. Potts,’” Voytko explained.
The actors told WBZ-TV that Disney’s involvement in this tour makes a noticeable impact, with Voytko saying, “There is nothing like a Disney-produced Disney production because the magic in the show, the attention to detail, the loving recreation of the movie that we all know and love, plus some elements of surprise.”
Johnson added, “They care about this piece of art so much… And they’re really precious with it, but at the same time, they’re open with it.”
Book writer Linda Woolverton worked with the cast in the rehearsal room to make sure the piece felt modern.
“She literally changed some scenes and lines specifically for us and our versions of these characters to make it seem grounded and real,” Johnson explained.
And Johnson gained extra insight into Belle’s life by visiting the Alsace region of France, which inspired the original Disney animators.
“Walking in the town and having like a storefront and then the leaning building that was this like blue and the wooden windows and somebody leaning out of it talking to somebody on the street. These are real places, it’s not just like a made-up place in your head.”
The wonder she felt is echoed in the audience’s response.
“This is a gate for a lot of new theater lovers. We get a lot of people who this is their first show,” said Johnson.
“It’s for everybody,” added Voytko. “It’s for adults, it’s for married couples, it is for a date night, it for a pack of pals who just want to see something nostalgic from their youth and it makes it a thrill for us every single day.”
You can see Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” at the Citizens Opera House in Boston through Sunday.
A historic number of people flooded into Pittsburgh for the NFL Draft on Thursday.
Around 320,000 fans attended the opening round of the draft on Thursday night just outside of Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh, which marked an attendance record for round one of the draft, ESPN announced on Monday afternoon. In total, about 805,000 people attended the three-day event.
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ESPN also said that about 13,2 million people tuned in to watch the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday night, which made it the third-most watched opening round under the current format, which started back in 2010. Only the 2025 and 2020 editions of the draft drew a bigger audience on the first night.
The league said that a record amount of merchandise was sold throughout the NFL Draft weekend, too, though it did not provide a figure or metric there. The previous record on that front was set last season in Green Bay.
The Las Vegas Raiders used the No. 1 overall pick on Indiana quarterback and reigning Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza on Thursday night. Mendoza, who led the Hoosiers to the national championship earlier this year, was not in attendance in Pittsburgh. Instead, he celebrated with his family from home in Miami.
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The NFL Draft will be held next spring in Washington D.C. for the first time in modern history. It’s expected to be held on the National Mall. Washington D.C. held the draft one other time back in December 1940.
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