Video of man yelling “slash Republican throats” was from 2020. It is not Thomas Matthew Crooks.

As authorities seek to determine what motivated a Pennsylvania gunman to open fire on former President Donald Trump’s political rally July 13, some social media users are trying to fill in the gap with their own theories.

"Thomas Matthew Crooks, Slash Republican throats," read a July 14 X post that included a video showing a man yelling. "There were signs … " read another July 14 X post with the same video.

(Screenshot of X post)

Both posts were corrected by community notes, X’s crowdsourced approach to addressing misinformation. The notes said that Crooks went to a Pennsylvania high school in 2020. One also included a better quality video, posted Feb. 6, 2020.

The 2020 video is real, and as onlookers at Arizona State University’s campus took video of him, the man shouted,"Slash Republican throats! Slash fascist throats!" 

The Arizona Republic reported that the man was yelling at members of Arizona State’s Students for Trump chapter who had set up a table on campus. The university confirmed the person was not Crooks. 

"ASU concluded its investigation back in 2020, in conjunction with the FBI, and determined the subject in the video was not a credible threat," Arizona State University President Michael Crow said in a July 15 statement. "That person has a different name and different date of birth than the suspect in the attempted assassination of former President Trump over the weekend."

Featured Fact-check

Threads posts

stated on September 24, 2024 in a Threads post

Says Donald Trump said, “Women are miserable — not sexy, not safe.”

Crooks, who was 20 years old, graduated from Pennsylvania’s Bethel Park High School in 2022. He would have been a high school sophomore in 2020. The Secret Service said its agents shot and killed Crooks after he opened fire at the Trump rally.

Although little is known about Crooks’ political history, he was a registered Republican and donated $15 in 2017 to the Progressive Turnout Project, a political action committee that rallies Democratic voters. The 2024 presidential election would have been the first in which Crooks could have voted. 

We rate the claim that this video shows Crooks yelling "slash Republican throats" False.