Bethel Park High School officials have contradicted reports that Trump shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks was bullied, threatening, and a member of the school’s rifle team.
In updated statements posted Saturday, officials said they have “no record” of Crooks ever trying out or being dismissed from the rifle team due to character or performance concerns, as previously reported.
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Some have. Some have said otherwise. The truth isn’t as clear yet about who he was
If some people say person X was bullied and some people say a person X wasn’t bullied. I’ll probably believe person X was bullied.
If you say they were bullied (and you’re not a liar) you only had to have seen it happen once. If you say they weren’t bullied either you a) never saw it happen or b) you’re always watching and it didn’t happen
A) is possible because most people don’t see all bullying, but it’s an overbroad statement B) is functionally impossible.
I’m also more likely to believe he was bullied because of the actual video that was posted where a classmate was pulling on his pant legs when Crooks didn’t want them to.
EDIT: fixed the link, I hope
There must be a mistake. That link is sending me directly to an ad for TikTok
Thanks for checking that. YouTube has been doing weird things if you click the share button at the wrong time.
Hopefully this works: https://youtu.be/g1_V_4sMoOg
Thanks for that. It’s difficult to concretely conclude he was being bullied from that clip but it certainly adds a small piece of insight.
I know a person who went to school with him. I was told he was indeed on the rifle team and was kicked out because he was absolutely dog shit at shooting.
I bet that person you know’s name is Kenny Powers, right?
Halbert Meinstein.
My school would claim I was never bullied, too, and it would be a lie.
Exactly. Especially if the administration was bully-friendly, which they often are. My daughter was so bullied at her middle school that we ended up having to take her out and put her in online school because the administration didn’t give a shit. The one time we went so apoplectic that they were forced to act, they made the bullies apologize to her and her apologize to the bullies. Which, of course, made things worse.
One of my daughter’s best friends is still in that school and he is trans. Some girl was harassing him and being incredibly bigoted to him and he finally turned around and slapped her for it. Guess which one of them got suspended and which one wasn’t even finger-wagged at? Hint: it wasn’t the girl that got suspended.
Ok, I’m curious. I get that the suspension was wrong and all…but did the girl ever bother him again? I will stand by my belief that the way you stop a bully, is to punch a bully in the mouth. Bullys bully because they feel they can get away with bullying without consequence. Present them an immediate cause and effect consequence, and they stop.
I don’t see how schools don’t realize this.
I don’t have the answer to that, but daughter never told me and she’s doing some video chat thing with friends right now, so I don’t want to bug her about it. I hope that stopped it for good from at least that girl.
I think they just denied the fact that he was on the rifle team, because they didn’t want it on record that their team would have missed.
Or, ya know…because they were responsible in training a would-be political assasin. And that probably comes with legal responsibilities. Such as “Why are we putting guns into teenagers hands, and teaching them how to kill?”
I love that in the current age if someone isn’t blasting every aspect of their life onto social media we have no idea what to do with them.
My high school would have said I wasn’t bullied. They’d be lying.
Lying implies intent. They likely would just be wrong.
They’re still not qualified to make that statement. It’s a fucking high school, the safest stance is always going to be that a kid like that was bullied.
The only statement they should make is if they have a record of him being bullied or not. They should not be speculating either way.
The article actually does say that they have no record. So it’s thedailybeast.com misquoting them in the headline presumably in an effort to spin a narrative.
In case the whole “hit a wall while trying to aim at a target on a different wall” story didn’t seem strange, the school has now confirmed he never tried out for the team. Also worth pointing out that many students interviewed said he was just a quiet kid who was not bullied, but the click-worthy headlines came from the kids who said he was bullied.
I have 2 middle schooler/high schoolers. Kids are not going to admit to bullying nor know who is being bullied if it’s not them doing the bullying or being bullied. They are all way too self involved at those ages.
Fair point on the bullying. But the shooting team claim was always absurd
I’d hold off till we get testimonial from students (we already might have, AFAIK) and coaches in the rifle team before we turn “we have no record of it” into “it didn’t happen”.
The bullying thing’s already been covered so I won’t harp on that.
Oh please, look at that year book photo again and tell me seriously that he wasn’t bullied.
“School says he wasn’t bullied” no shit. Guy could get beaten right in front of the principal and they’d claim nothing happened lmao
He’d be suspended or expelled for “participating in a fight”
Imagine interviewing the superintendent or whoever and they go: wait, you’re talking about Pantshitter Mcglasses? Yeah we bullied him, look at this little shit.
This shit here is why I’m glad I was homeschooled with caring, loving parents.
We literally didn’t have bullies in our school.
Of course, we also had proper funding and an administration that both gave a shit and had the power to expel bullies.
Sounds like you got lucky compared to many. My wife’s experience at a large high school despite not being one of the easier targets still saw and experienced plenty. Bullying of my older sister was a big reason my parents did the same for us decades ago. Meanwhile the general statistics show a rising trend of bullying, forgetting rising adolescent suicide and ODs. Probably no coincidence that this coincides with rising school shootings, too. We mutually agreed to homeschool our kids with supplementary education (online curriculums, state resources, libraries, etc.).
Secular, not religious Christian fundies. That’s where many issues with homeschooling arise.
I don’t think small school clubs usually keep detailed long-term records, so that’s not saying much
If they’d als my school, they would go: who? Look up a file and say: nah he was never bullied.
Why does the guy have to have been bullied? Maybe he just really hated a convicted criminal, rapist, draft dodger, supected pedophile, treasonous, and otherwise all-around garbage human being and thought the world didn’t need as many of those as it has.
Just because someone made an attempt on that orange clown’s life doesn’t give the horse’s ass a pass at being an all-around shit heel.
Fuck that fat piece of shit.
All the evidence points to him just doing it for the sake of committing a shooting though. He was looking up random political events, seemingly to find the closest one, regardless of party.
So you’re saying we nearly managed to get rid of Trump accidentally?
Careful. Statements like that could break up your band.
No, he definitely wanted to kill Trump. But if Biden were holding a rally that day, it just as easily could’ve been him. At least that’s what the initial evidence seems to be saying
So he wanted to shoot someone for the sake of shooting them but definitely wanted to kill Trump. Does it say anywhere that he definitely wanted to kill Biden? Him shooting Bidene is just speculation on your part.
If he wanted to just shoot someone he could have chosen someone not as high profile and survived.
He was looking up the closest political rally. Turns out it was Trump.
I feel like if he did that to a democrat, people would have reacted very differently instead of the mental health angle.
Well yeah if he was on the rifle team, I’d imagine he’d have had better aim.
It’s a 6" target at 147 yards with iron sights… With probably max adrenaline as well. Only missed by a couple inches
Give the kid some credit where it’s due. It was pretty fucking close
No because a good Rifleman wouldn’t have aimed at the head.
I mean… people say this. But a head shot with normal ammunition would be the only way to ensure a kill on a target that could potentially be wearing body armor.
I don’t condone what he did, violence of this kind is never the answer. But speaking on the planning of a good marksman I would bet with this setup they would have gone for a head shot. A good marksman would never be in this situation though…
20yo with no formal training = not a good marksman
Nobody was saying he was.
No that’s literally what I was saying. Go back and reread the comments, that’s my whole point.
“Crooks was well within that range when he opened fire on Trump Saturday from about 135 meters (147 yards) from where Trump was speaking”
Still a long shot but not as bad as 400 yards. 400 yards with iron sights would be almost impossible. 147 would still be hard but not impossible with practice. Not that this dude has practice and a scope would be cheap and infinitely easier.
I’ll edit for clarity. Thank you for the correction
Are rifle teams common in high schools? I mean I know that sport shooting is a thing, but I never heard of a high school with a rifle team. I went to high school in WA state.
Depends on the area. Golf teams aren’t common in schools, but my school had one.
A high school rifle team? What the what?
Yeah, it’s a thing.
Rifle teams, trap shooting teams are not all that uncommon, all funded by your friends in the NRA.
The Olympics have shooting in both the biathlon (rifle) and trap shooting so it’s not as bizarre as some US gun things.
All I can say is I never heard of such a thing growing up in Indiana. And I graduated high school before Columbine. Giving kids rifles at schools now, even if they’re being monitored, seems nuts.
High schools in Nevada with HSJROTC programs had rifle teams. My high school had a range and I believe that they used .22s in competion, but for class we used air rifles. There was a gun safety training and written testing you had to pass and then those who were allowed to participate could fire during class during the module (only juniors and seniors, freshmen and sophomores did not get this module). I remember the Colonel was the only one who had a key to the lockers for rifles and the ammunition was kept in a separate locked locker. It was a fun unit! For reference, I graduated in 2000.
If I remember correctly, those who opted out were given other work or allowed to work on unfinished classwork.
I don’t know if they still do this though.
JROTC makes sense. My high school didn’t have it.
I grew up in the Glorious People’s Republic of Texas and was in highschool in the 90s. We had a variety of projectile-based clubs: rifle, trap shooting, and archery.
I may or may not have learned how to bow hunt as part of a school club.
However, uh, yeah, I don’t think I’d give a bunch of kids guns at this point either.
I would have loved archery as an extracurricular when I was in school.
Me too! My parents got me a kids’ size longbow and a couple of arrows (real wooden ones, not suction cups or whatever) as a present and I made a target in the yard and shot (badly) at it all the time. I’d love to have learned real archery.
I know shooting sports in schools used to be a thing, but figured after Columbine that those programs were all dropped and didn’t exist anymore. Gunfire near a school is no longer about academic competitions, but something tragic and far too common.
Although to be fair, I have never heard of a school rifle team in part because there has been no tragedy associated with one so far.
Just regular 'ol American things…
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be shocked if Swiss schools had rifle teams. Biathlon teams, in fact.
Schools tend to hide bullying problems I know from experience.
Quick, get rid of the paperwork. Adam, where is the effing shredder. Bully? Nonsense. Never happened.
Every report I’ve seen said he failed to make the tea so I don’t know where the fake fact came from that he was on it, but this is the first time I have read he wasn’t picked on.
To be fair, I don’t think we can rely on a school self-reporting bullying.
There is no bullying in hi-school-sai.
The claim they’re making is that he was not kicked out of club for his behavior.
I’ve always seen it claimed he wasn’t allowed in at all for strange comments and poor aim.
Interesting that they’re saying something no one was claiming happened didn’t happen.
Of course thats the story coming from covering your ass high,
For the downvoters, schools aren’t to be considered entirely objective on bullying on their watch.
There was a documentary from a few years back the covered the subject. Bully
Why the fuck is there a rifle team in school???
Same reason the track and field team throws the javelin and shotput.
Sports shooting is incredibly popular at the high school and collegiate level in the US.
It’s an olympic sport?
What? Are you serious? To teach kids how to shoot guns. Because it’s America. Are you telling me you don’t want a bunch of hormonal teenagers with undeveloped emotional cortex’s to be handling and comfortable with guns??? Well how else are we going to shoot each other in a crowded public environment…you know the more I say this outloud the more I see your point.
Yes, kids should be taught about guns. Nothing in depth, not unless they demonstrate basic safety skills and wish to pursue the subject. But a 10-minute mandated lecture ain’t gonna get it.
Took my 8 and 11-yo shooting for the first time on Spring Break. We have a camp in the swamp so it’s a safe and calm environment, no gunshot noise, focused instruction. Predictably, their mom shat kittens.
Know what? Now they have a feel for what guns are about, and that includes lethality. Previously, their ideas all came from Hollywood. I also showed them some of mine that bear an unfortunate resemblance to toys. Speaking of…
We can teach out kids to never, ever, on pain of beating to touch a gun. But we can’t helicopter them for life. What if some idiot kid pulls out his dad’s super cool pistol to show off? “It’s all good. It’s not loaded.” or “It’s not a real gun.” First thing I taught them (behind the basic rules) was how to recognize someone being dangerous, when to get the hell away from that person.
And the cherry on top? I’ve taken the mystery away, removed the forbidden fruit. Now that they can take it or leave it, they somewhat ambivalent. My daughter likes to take a shot or three and hang out helping reload. My son loves his little .22, but no big deal if we forget it at home.
