(Ken Silva, Headline USA) On Monday morning, news broke that the parents of alleged Trump shooter Thomas Crooks have hired lawyers as the FBI probes their possible foreknowledge of the attack on the July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Later that day, a local law cop from the July 13 Trump rally gave a possible reason why Crooks’s parents are apparently worried about criminal liability. According to the local cop— Washington Regional SWAT operator Ben Shaffer—the explosives found in Crooks’s vehicle may have been made in his parents’ house.
“The explosives that were used—their primary charge was a homemade variant called ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, or ANFO, supposedly manufactured, possibly in the residence of the home,” said Shaffer, who was a counter sniper stationed about 238 yards southwest from where Donald Trump was speaking, and about 348 yards from where Crooks opened fire.
https://t.co/Ng4Oq19Ceg pic.twitter.com/xheAOlNiHu
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) August 27, 2024
Ammonium nitrate is a potent explosive, capable of wreaking death and destruction on an unimaginable scale. The April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing was one such example—a homemade bomb containing ammonium nitrate that had been constructed and detonated with devastating consequences.
If bombs were indeed manufactured in the Crooks household, that would explain why it was reportedly clean to the point of being sterile when law enforcement arrived there after the July 13 shooting. Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., revealed the information about the clean house last month when he questioned Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Christopher Paris at a congressional hearing.
“Did you get any reports from any of your agents of anything fishy at the home. Was there any silverware found in the home, or trash? Was it extremely clean, almost like a medical lab? That’s what I’m hearing. Interesting,” Crane said to Paris, who professed ignorance about the matter.
Yesterday, it was revealed that Crooks possibly made ANFO bombs at his parents' house.
That would explain cryptic questions @RepEliCrane made last month about how the house was clean when law enforcement arrived there after the shooting
Was the house sterilized because bombs were… pic.twitter.com/FPCPUADbV7— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) August 27, 2024
Additionally, Fox News reported the day after the attack that bomb-making materials were found in the home.
Meanwhile, the Crookses’ neighbors are beginning to talk to media.
“I would love to know what really happened and what Thomas’ motivation was,” neighbor Kelly Little, 39, told The New York Post.
“It’s been weeks since police were here. There’s nothing happening, no police activity,” she reportedly said, reportedly noting that local cops drive by occasionally, but there haven’t been officers stationed there long-term.
Another neighbor who declined to be named reportedly said she doesn’t think Crooks acted alone. Yet another neighbor who only gave her first name, Karen, questioned the parents’ involvement.
“What went on in that house? Why didn’t they know their son was going through whatever he was going through or that their son thought the way he thought?” she reportedly asked.
The same Post article that quoted the neighbors also reported that law enforcement seized 4.5 terabytes of data from Crooks’s laptop, two cellphones and multiple hard drives and flash drives—a fact this writer hadn’t encountered before.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
