Questions Swarm Around Attempted Assassin Crooks

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The cash keyword contests that they havein front of me. This would be
for the eleven o'clock at noon hour. Mm hm, think Bridge Bridge over
troubled Water. I mean, like, are the location bridge bridge Bridge covered?
No, think Bridge Brooklyn wrong?San Francisco, you got it,
Peter from San Francisco in the eleveno'clock hour. The next one close by

(00:24):
Bulldogs, close by San Francisco.Oh, close by, Oh Fresno.
There you go. Yeah. Howabout this for a name, Restatuto,
Jose Restatuto. I like that.I'm guessing it's Jose Restituto, but it's
meant it's it's listed incorrectly as Restituto. Jose, which I think is some

(00:45):
off brand superhero on Mexican television,would be my guess. I like that
name. He goes he's like Dogthe bounty Hunter, except he's getting people's
restitution for them from for for whatthey have done in their transgressions against fellow
Mexican. Well, if you transgressagainst Jose, you will get Restituto.

(01:06):
The restitutoed use that as a verb. I want to Restituto to you.
Now that's not oh no, that'sa name that belongs in the ring restituto
hotel. Move right there? Oh? The RESTITUTEO? Yeah, can you
imagine that? The people's restituto?L people? What's what's people? In
Spanish? I'm going to Spain ina couple months. I should I should

(01:27):
be really learning how to speak Spanishon a very basic level. I'm not
doing so good in my Spanish classes. If you haven't noticed restuto translation,
yeah, restitution it's literally it's likea guy named Restitution is basically what this
is. Well, anyway, hewon a thousand dollars in a nation my
keywer contest. So good for him. Wow, how do you get the

(01:49):
last name Restitution? I don't know. It's Spanish. It sounds cool,
though. I hope his family settledthe score. Tim says Emery trash boy
that intro music has to be thecorniest guard bitch. What we've been using
that for a year? I mean, what do you like, sir?
What's his name? Tim? Tim? Tim has quite quite a few unhinged

(02:09):
things that he sends me on adaily What do you like? Tiny Tim?
I wouldn't call him tiny Tim.I don't know if he's tall.
Are you tall, Tiny Tim?He wouldn't be tiny if he was tiny
tall Tim, how would we callhim tiny tall Tim? It doesn't make
any sense. It's ron I likeit though, Okay, anyway, it's
a two twelve by the word waythe keywords credit, Hey, tiny tall
Tim, it's two twelve. It'stoo twelve to twelve? Credit is the

(02:34):
word. Put it in a kfabdot com You have a chance to win
one thousand dollars in the NATIONWI keywordcontest. Good luck. If I sent
you back to high school, Ohand you just got to relive it all
over again. Yeah, how manyof your classmates that you weren't close friends
with would you remember? And wouldyou be able to like profile for me?
By and by profile, I meanjust like tell me about them,

(02:54):
what they look like, how tallthey are, like pretend like they were
a criminal. Basically tell me everythingyou know about them, like if I
was scanning a yearbook, Like isthat kind of what you mean? Or
yeah, yeah, let's just likeuh yeah, So if I like said
a name that, oh that's thatguy. Yeah, I could probably give
you a couple fast facts, butthey wouldn't be very you know, like

(03:15):
if I wasn't very familiar with them, they wouldn't be very specific what age
was like about the time you startedto really take note of like the people,
Like is there a time frame inyour schooling that you just noted that?
Oh? Yeah, like I knowwho all these people are. Like,
if the last time that you talkedto this person was when you were
twelve, would you remember them thesame as if you met them when you

(03:36):
were fourteen. Hmmm, that's agood question. I don't know. It
really just depends. There are I'vemet people before and they were like,
hey, remember me, and Idon't. Then I feel bad. But
there are others. It's different inthe Facebook age, I think, Yeah,
if the Facebook age is a littlebit different, but you're not on
Facebook, So I mean you don'thave the benefit of the doubt there,
right, You can't. You can'tutilize that tool to try to help reac

(04:00):
figure your memory. It's fair,however, though people in the olden days
had much better memories. They couldtell stories for generations upon generations and remember
all the details, not to saythat any of those were completely inaccurate,
sure, apocryphal and in their variousways, and everybody remembers things a little
bit differently. There's a great movieabout that. It's called Knives Out.
You should check it out. Ah, Knives Out, Okay, I've seen

(04:23):
that right, Ryan Johnson. It'sa star studded cast done very well.
Basically, you're watching the same thinghappen from six or seven different perspectives,
and there are just minute details everysingle time it's told that are different.
Interesting that it was. Ryan Johnson, considering how he had Knives Out for
the Star Wars franchise, just generallycut that franchise to pieces with his Uh,

(04:47):
he had to find his voice,patient Matt. He had to find
his voice. He found He foundit with Knives Out, and then the
sequel and then the next one.He just needs to be making these films
for now. No, he's onthe third one. A gotcha. Benois
Blanc played by Daniel Craig, reallywell done. Daniel Craig with a Southern

(05:08):
accent, not the English accent thathe actually has and used in Bond,
James Bond. Okay, anyway,back on track here, I could tell
you quite a few. I thinkI would mistake some names if I wasn't
super close friends with them, butif they were acquaintance of mine, I
would remember some things. How abouta person that you were familiar with that

(05:28):
you talked about stuff like politics yourtwenty ish now and you talked about this
when you were twelve, would youtrust your memory on that? It just
it just depends. I think thatI would be much more likely to be
correct when I was twenty then versusnow on any conversation I had when I
was twelve. But there really it'sa boring and bland answer. But it's

(05:54):
really just dependent on that impact ofthe conversation. Okay, if I brought
a camera to you, would youtry to remember as much as possible to
get that interview and be filmed andbe noted on a national level. Would
you do your best to like reallyget your memory working or even just kind
of like fill in some of yourgaps in your memory, because I would

(06:14):
do my best. Yeah, Yeah, because I mean it kind of changes
the status quo for you, doesn'tit. It's like, oh, gosh,
national media wants to talk to mebecause I know a guy man,
I better come up with some storyquick. I'm not ruling that out,
but a classmate of the gunman inthe attemptive assassination of Donald Trump, Thomas
Matthew Crooks, one of his classmates, has been spoken to. I have

(06:38):
some of what he said and willbreak down how reliable this is and if
this uncovers maybe an underneath motive that'scoming up stick around on news radio eleven
ten kfab I'm going to tell yousome things, and you tell me when
to stop if you start to bea little bit questionable about the information that
I'm telling you. Okay, I'mgonna read this pretty much verbatim word for
word as Fox News who found aformer classmate of Thomas Matthew Crooks, who

(07:05):
is the twenty year old assassin ifyou want to call him, that attempted
assassin if you will, who graizedDonald Trump in the year with a bullet,
killed a bystander, and injured twoothers before being shot himself by snipers.
In Pennsylvania on Saturday y afternoon,a man young man by the name

(07:28):
of Vincent Tower Mina. Vincent TowerMina was basically said that Thomas Matthew Crooks
mocked him over his support of formerPresident Trump. He said, and I
quote, I brought up the factthat I'm Hispanic and you know I'm for
Trump. And he said, well, you're Hispanics, So shouldn't you hate
Trump? I said, no,he's great, he was a great president,

(07:48):
and he called me stupid or insinuatedthat I was stupid. End quote.
Now let me tell you when thishappened. He said it happened during
a discussion in an English class duringthe twenty sixteen campaign, when Trump,
Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders areall still in the race. Matt can
I remind you that Matthew Thomas MatthewCrooks was twenty years old when he was
shot after his assassination attempt on Saturday. How old would he have been in

(08:13):
during the twenty sixteen campaign, Well, that would have put him at the
ripe age of twelve. Yet heremister Tawermina has told us that he said
he's great, he's a great president, and he called me stupid or insinuated
that I was stupid. Now that'snot to say maybe they didn't have an
additional conversation a little bit later ondown the line after he became the president.
But twelve year olds are we buyingtwelve year olds being this politically active?

(08:37):
And can you really get a readon somebody for the way they talk
about politics when their twelve. Ihave more here, but I just kind
of want to start there. Well, yeah, I mean sure, when
you're twelve, you still have thoughtsand feelings and opinions, and those are
going to change. I think,what do they change? Because of course,
yeah, people's well hey, looknot everybody's changes though, not everies,

(09:00):
But I think it's very common,okay, people to the more you're
exposed to the world, the moreyour feelings about it mold and adapt and
change. Well, I guess mypoint is we're using a conversation he had
when he was twelve as a wayto talk about what he thought about a
person like Trump when he's twenty.I got more here, Anequa. This

(09:20):
is from Vincent Taramina, a formerclassmate of Thomas Matthew Crooks. He says
he did not like politicians, especiallywith the choices that we had. He
did not like our politicians. Hecontinued by saying that he was usually quiet
except on certain topics that he waspassionate about, which included math and politics,
and on those issues, according toVincent, he could be smug and
arrogant. We all know that person, right, Somebody that you know kind

(09:43):
of sits on the bench when it'snot something they care about. When they
do care about it, they jumpin and there the know it all in
the group. Sounds like a guywho probably had a Reddit account. Oh,
it's definitely like somebody like me too. Now, I don't try to
act smug, but I'm not sayingI haven't acted smug about knowing things.
When I was twenty twenty five,you know, we start talking about sports
trivia, having to get discussion aboutsome of the greatest players of all time

(10:05):
in a given sport, I wouldhave been very smug in that conversation.
When I was nineteen, I hadthis like in depth argument with someone over
what EMO music was and what wasthe answer. Do you remember we had
We had a different perspective. Whatdoes EMO stand for? It's short for
something emotional music. Okay, soby definition then I don't want to take

(10:28):
this conversation away, but I'm justI'm giving to your point of yes,
you're right. When you're younger,you have very strong opinions on things.
You just know right, Like youknow what you know and you are convicted
and what you know and anybody elsethat disagrees with you, they just don't
know as much as you exactly.That's I feel like we all kind of
are there. I have callers everyday and this isn't an insult, but
they feel that way. They suredo. There's nothing wrong with that.

(10:52):
It's just a common human emotion.I think you feel like you know stuff
you're listening to. Somebody disagrees withyou, like you just oh know everything.
I think there's a human like youhave to really coach yourself to not
be that way if you want tochange. If you don't, if you're
okay feeling that way and coming offthat way, then you don't need to
change nothing. People just see youas potentially smug and arrogant, like this

(11:15):
guy said now. He said hewould just talk, talk and act like
he knew better, knew everything,especially politics related, and he would say
it in a tone that was likeI'm better than you in a type of
way. Was he wearing a fedorawhile saying this? I mean looks like
the kind of guy that probably waswearing a fedora at sixteen years old,
don't you think? Yeah. Healso said he pushed back on the reports

(11:39):
that Crooks was a complete loaner.He said that he had a friend group,
although in his words, he calledit both small and concerning. Okay,
he said they were definitely the type, and they did make threats to
shoot up our school. Yikes.Now, what proof do we have of
this? We have no proof.This guy's testimony about knowing this guy when
he was kids like young kids,how often would that been? Like,

(12:00):
don't you think that would have beennoted in some way? Can we go
to his high school, or hiselementary school, or his middle school and
see if there's any documentation of complaintsabout potential school threats? Well, you
know, when I was a kidand a teacher wanted to put the fear
in you, they'd say, thismight go in your permanent file. You
would think if somebody was reported forsomething like that, that would be in

(12:20):
a permanent file somewhere, and thenwe could figure out from these people,
was he related at all in thegroups that these people would hang out with,
if these personal files even exist.I was always a little suspect of
my teachers. I mean, you'renot wrong. I really haven't seen a
permanent record or a permanent file inperson before AnyWho He said they suspected Cooks

(12:43):
himself was behind a threat. Hehad no firm proof. After the threat
came in, he didn't return toschool for a few days, so he's
like he's going back in time,kind of thinking, well, he was
gone for a few days after weexpect, like suspected him of threatening the
skoo. Now, if this islegitimate, if he is correct, if
this is correct, then I thinkwe have a motive here that this is

(13:07):
a guy who is just like abroken individual in the brain, very passionate
about politics. Doesn't sound like fromhis interactions with this guy that we're talking
to, Vincent Tararomina that he likedDonald Trump, and he said at some
point Thomas Matthew Crooks's demeanor changed andgot quieter and stopped confronting people about politics.
But according to Vincent, he hadfriends and is surprised nobody had a

(13:30):
red flag about this guy. Also, we do have information about the gun.
The AR fifteen was legally purchased byCrooks's libertarian father in twenty thirteen,
which would that would have been aroundCrooks since he was do the math nine
nine, he'd been nine years old, that gun was around all the time.
So I don't know, do webelieve this, how much of this

(13:52):
do we believe. Is this enoughto kind of try to put the pieces
together. I could throw the wholeregistered Republican stuff out the window. I
mean, I think I think anybodycan just become a registered anything. But
I think that narrative is going todie down the more we learn about this.
But how much of this do youtrust? How much of this can
we trust? This is a newsoutlet going to talk to a kid who's

(14:13):
very young adult giving them national televisionattention, asking do you know stuff about
this guy that you went to schoolwith? If you have thoughts on whether
or not we should believe this,or if this gives us any additional insight
into what happened? Call in fourtwo five five eight eleven ten four H
two five five eight eleven ten,Well take your calls in your thoughts.
Coming up next on news radio eleventen KFABA Wendy Wendy, Wendy from Wendy

(14:41):
Wendy. Oh, the hint isWendy. The hint's Wendy, said,
Wendy. Wendy So Chicago, Yeah, Wendy City, Marsha in Chicago,
Marsha, Oh, Marsha in Chicago. There you go, Hey, if
you know all Marsha and Chicago.She just got a thousand bucks richer.
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(15:03):
You're gonna buy a whole lot ofChicago Dogs. Got bears by the
way. First episode of Hard Knocksfeaturing the Chicago Bears, August sixth on
Max and wherever they stream that thing. John's on our phone line four two,
five, five, eight eleven ten, John, Welcome to the show
today. What's on your mind?Hey, good afternoon. Hey, I
heard that his parents had called thecops like hours beforehand, and what they

(15:28):
reported still hasn't been released, butcorrect, they had called and said something
that's like incomfidence on their part orthe secret service of the police is just
rampant in this and the way thatthe news has been covering it. I'm
surprised they didn't say it was themostly peaceful bullet that grazed President Joe's head.
Yeah, So, John, Idid see this report of the kid's

(15:50):
parents putting a call in. I'mguessing they noticed the gun was gone.
We get told all the time tobe talking about red flags or if you
see something, say something. Andit feels like many people were trying their
best to say something in this regardin what should have been as secure an
outdoor area that ever was. Imean, you would think, and somehow

(16:11):
nothing got done about this guy untilhe had He had shot at the president,
hit him, and then killed aguy and hit two other people.
Corey Comparatore is gone, like he'sdead because of this negligence, and he
almost he was an inch away fromkilling Donald Trump. I have a hard
time understanding that all of these thingsare lining up. Yet somehow he still

(16:33):
was able to get to where hewanted to get. He knew where he
wanted to be and got shots off. I don't know how that happens exactly.
And the police report that they weregiven, the parents were concerned.
Then they found a guy with therains finder half an hour beforehand. Then
they see somebody climbing up the sideof a building. The people were pointing
at it. The cops, youknow, one of the cops put eyes

(16:56):
on him and then fell. Ratherthan getting on a radio immediately say and
there's a guy on the roof shooting, shooting, shooting, you know.
I mean all that just kind ofcombined just I'm conspiracy theory is kind of
like my middle name now because theyseem to be conspiracy fact. Yeah,
so this is why I don't promoteconspiracy theories. Is like, hey,

(17:18):
if you have one of these,it's fine, but don't act like it's
all the answers. But until weget answers, I don't know what else
we're supposed to believe. You know, well, you know what I'm saying.
I have a saying that it's calledwhen all the logical things are exempted
the illogical, no matter how screwedup they are almost at a bad word,
no matter how screwed up is theanswer. So all the logical has

(17:41):
been put aside the illogical. Theanswer, well, when you look at
it, there's the only logical answerthat we have is that the Secret Service
literally was that bad at their joband just didn't secure this building. But
man, they have secured so manyplaces over the years, it's hard for
me to imagine that this was notsomething a little bit more than that.

(18:03):
So I don't know, John,and I appreciate you very kindly for catching
yourself and not saying a swear word. You're a welcome buddy, and have
a wonderful day. Yeah you too. Hey, don't be saying swear words
on the radio. It it's you, it's me, it's Matt gets our
radio station in big Trump. Itdoes. But I got a big old,
shiny red button up here, andI can literally erase time. It's

(18:25):
kind of yeah, yeah, metoo, I got a big button here.
There was one time I accidentally hitit twice, which I'm not supposed
to do. Uh you know whywhy you don't know how it works?
Well, if you do it twice, doesn't a double it. So we're
on should we tell people this?Uh? I don't want to. I
don't want to. I don't wantto, Like, I don't want people
to just take advantage of this.Oh yeah, maybe we shouldn't, you
know what I mean? Just likethey call in and then they just start

(18:48):
saying stuff because we're trusting the technology. Well, essentially what it does is,
yeah, you like, if Ihit it twice, it completely erases
the delay. You're supposed hit itonce and there's still like a delay.
Hitting it twice is a bad thing. They'll be hitting twice anyway. If
you want to call in you gotthoughts on what's going on here, you
can go ahead and call in nowfour two five five eight eleven ten four
two five five eight to eleven ten. Rix there, Ri's on the phone

(19:11):
line. Rick, Welcome to theshow. Thanks Emory. I don't know
if I'm all there, but I'mhere anyway. Getting back to the Trump
tobacco, when you put yourself infront of these people, there's obviously things
that can happen, and you're inthese different venues. And there was a
pundit on after the shooting on Sunday, and I think he was on MSNBC

(19:32):
or one of the more progressive channels, and he made the comment, they
only have three thousand Secret Service agents. And I'm thinking, didn't Biden just
spend four point eight or four pointnine trillion dollars and they didn't even give
so they didn't even give selective Theydidn't give protection to Kennedy. I mean,
here was a guy that was aviable candidate to some extent in the

(19:52):
Democratic Party, and that just showshow how maligned the system is. Right,
and they have since corrected that,for whatever it's, for whatever it's
if, they have since corrected that. And after the near assassination of Donald
Trump. Biden did tell the SecretService to protect RFK now too, so
well, but I mean, butI mean, when you spend five trillion
dollars in frivolous things and you don'tprotect the two highest rated parties in the

(20:18):
country or most meaningful parties, andyou know, it's like the kid that
got caught, you know, inthe in the jam jar when you should
have I won't do it again.Well that's all Biden said. But we
know Biden's not running the country anyway. This is all orchestrated by Obama and
his cronies. But just getting backto the elementary part of it, where
they wouldn't even give an opposing candidatein the same party with the protection.

(20:41):
That just shows that shows how sickthe system is. And hopefully people will
come November they want to vote forthat party that allowed such a travesty to
happen. Thank you for taking thecall. No product see it. Yeah,
I don't disagree that Biden's honestly runningthe country. I have quite about
the Obama part of this, becauseit doesn't sound like Obama's too thrilled about

(21:03):
what's going on right now. Andyou think if Biden's the puppet we all
think he is, he'd probably begetting out of the way at some point.
But I don't know, That's notreally what we're talking about here.
It is an sub system. Itis like, how do you not have
the foresight to understand that, hey, maybe we need to, you know,
allow the Secret Service to protect thesepolitical candidates if we're going to have
the rhetoric that hey, we're allhuman rore all Americans were not that different.

(21:27):
But for months RFK was on thecampaign trail having to, you know,
spend his own dollars to protect himin his campaign. How do you
let that happen? And then atleast he have missed that he's wrong.
But why aren't we talking about thatmore? Why aren't we talking about the
fact that it took one of thepresidential candidates almost getting shot and killed.

(21:48):
He was shot, killed, assassinatedbefore somebody like the president decided, oh
yeah, maybe we should protect theseguys after all. Maybe being petty about
them breaking from our political party,maybe that's not a good idea. I
don't know. But that that Idon't like that. I don't like that
at all. Two forty eight isthe time. I got some more information

(22:11):
about what we know about Thomas MatthewCrooks and his day and what we know
about him. We heard from oneof his classmates earlier. I got a
couple other people that were aware ofhim pretty recently. And we'll talk about
that next. And if you wantto call in, you can four h
two five five eight eleven ten,News Radio eleven ten, KFAB. Em
Rys Songer on news Radio eleven tenKFAB. You can call in at four

(22:37):
h two five five eight eleven tenand Joe's on the phone line right now.
Joe, welcome to the show.What's on your mind? When you
talked about Kennedy just getting coverage afterthe successful assassination just now of the president,
why are we talking about what Trumphad as protection. I've seen pictures
in the video of one of themcowering behind the dog style that was covering

(23:00):
him. I've seen that same personnot knowing how to handle their weapon.
And then I watched the convention lastnight. I know what Trump showed up
looked a little bit more like theeighteen old Joe glad to see it.
I hope the first thing Trump closesis the d DEI offered Yeah, Well,

(23:22):
the woman who's in charge of theSecret Service. I mean, she's
trying to say it was all onme. What does that mean is can't
shouldn't she be out of a jobby herself right now? If that's the
case? Didn't she say there wasnobody on the roof of the building that
the assassin fired his weapon from wasnot covered because it was a slanted roof,

(23:44):
And then they show the roof wherethe guy that shot him was at
much more of a pitch the otheralmost twice as it looked twice as steep
honestly from the photos. So whata crazy thing, right, I don't
know, the excuse is add upto me, Joe, I appreciate the
call. Yeah, I mean,he's right, He's right the DEI offs

(24:07):
being the first thing that's closed.I mean, I feel like he's got
more things that he's thinking about doing. But certainly this is a thing that
in our country we are constantly battling, right, what's the right thing to
do, what's the wrong thing todo? And I just feel like for
the last thirty forty years since theReagan assassination attempt, these secret Service agents

(24:29):
and security around presidents or presidential candidateshave been overly cautious to make sure nothing
this is like this ever potentially happens. Yet, all of these things that
we have talked about, and we'rethree four days later after having a chance
to like understand this, and themore we learn, the more questions we
have. Tom's on the phone line, Tom, thanks for listening to what's
that? Yeah, I just couldn'thelp. But notice the other day that

(24:56):
Shooter's parents were both social workers.Yes, I have had a lot of
social workers in my life, andI would have to admit that them are
public bat iguana bananas. I mean, I don't know too many, so

(25:17):
I can't speak on that, butyou would think if anybody would notice erratic
behavior, it'd probably be them.And for them to be so and Tom,
I appreciate the calm rade out oftime here, but for them to
be so polar opposite from what we'rereading. Mother was a Democrat, was
democratic leanings. Husband's a staunch libertarianand loved the AR fifteen that he bought

(25:41):
in twenty thirteen, which ended upbeing the weapon that was used by Thomas
Matthew Crooks. It's an interesting dichotomythe term social worker is a really wide
net term. It fits a lotof criteria and a lot of careers.
Just I think counselors is probably alittle bit more of a accurate term about
these two people, but we're learningmore about them too. We'll talk about

(26:03):
what they said later on news radioeleven ten kmfib