Residents of a quiet Bethel Park neighborhood say they hardly knew the family of Thomas Crooks, the 20-year-old gunman who tried to assassinate President Trump in Butler, Pa. Neighbors described the family as reclusive, keeping to themselves for years before the shooting drew national attention to their normally peaceful street.
“I did not know anything about them or who they even were. I couldn’t have recognized them,” said neighbor Forrest Works, who has lived across the street for nearly a decade. “They kept to themselves. The dad mowing his lawn is the only thing that I’ve ever seen of who lives in the house.”
Works said it wasn’t unusual for neighbors to know little about one another but added that the Crooks family stood out for their absence from community life. “Even Halloween, this time of year with people walking around, nobody’s going to their house. They were just not active in the community.”
After the July shooting, the quiet street of modest, well-kept homes transformed into a media and law enforcement hub. “It was relatively crowded,” Works said. “Surprisingly, not crazy, though. It was just pretty much everybody watching the house. So it wasn’t a ton of bother to us, the neighbors, but it was packed. It was definitely interesting, for sure.”
He stayed away as police and reporters filled the area. “I wasn’t here for the weekend at all, so I didn’t even come back until Monday morning. I grabbed stuff real quick and left,” he said. “There were police. The road was blocked. Media, obviously, like the tents and things like that… that really only lasted for a couple days.”
Other neighbors approached by the South Shore Press politely declined to discuss their neighbors, unwilling to relive the unexpected notoriety caused by the tragic event.