A registered Republican
Unconfirmed videos and photos on the internet showed Crooks to be a tall, slender, white man who wore glasses and had long sandy-brown hair.
Voter-registration data showed that Crooks was a registered Republican voter but on Jan 20 2021, two weeks after pro-Trump alt-Right supporters stormed the White House, Crooks gave $15 to a grassroots Democratic group.
Crooks didn’t have a criminal record. A video purportedly showing him wearing a black gown as he graduated from the Bethel Park High School in 2022 was circulating on social media.
The Telegraph has not been able to verity the footage.
Crook’s father told CNN he was trying to find out “what the hell” was going on but that he would talk to law enforcement before speaking about his son.
Open-source intelligence analysts reported that Crooks didn’t appear to use mainstream social media channels such as Facebook or Instagram and had an almost negligible internet footprint, which is highly unusual for a 20-year-old. Instead, analysts said that Crooks corresponded with friends and associates on a Discord server that they were now trying to access.
Discord servers are restricted ring-fenced sections of the internet. They are often used by gaming groups and communities as secure chat rooms but are also used by fringe organisations to push their ideologies and discuss wild conspiracy theories and plots.
Popular pro-gun channel
The Demolition Ranch YouTube is one of the most popular pro-gun channels in the US. It has nearly 12 million subscribers and is a mix of instructional videos of clients learning how to shoot at the Demolition Ranch range in Texas and middle-aged men glorifying sniper rifles.
One website selling Demolition Ranch t-shirts, including the one that Crooks was wearing, said that people wore it as a “testament to the fun, educational, and supportive nature” of the channel. Anybody can buy the Demolition Ranch merchandise.
“This shirt is more than just apparel; it’s a statement of unity and shared passion for firearms and the Second Amendment,” the website selling the t-shirts said.
The Second Amendment is the clause in the US constitution that allows people to carry weapons and is the focus of furious debate.
The star of the Demolition Ranch channel is Matt Carriker, a 38-year-old father of three and a trained vet, who is known for rescuing stray and injured cats and dogs.
His personal Instagram account has 1.4 million subscribers and is filled with more photos of guns and cars, as well as family snaps from ski holidays and marathon training. There doesn’t appear to be any political slogans on the account.
Mr Carriker reposted the photo of members of the US security forces standing over Crooks’ dead body, wearing the grey Demolition Ranch t-shirt.
“What the hell?” he wrote underneath the photo.