Original article (in Serbian) was published on 15/7/2024; Author: Marija Vučić
After news spread globally that 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Donald Trump during a campaign speech in Pennsylvania on Saturday, a Twitter user from the USA with the nickname “jewgazing” posted several photos of himself and a video claiming to be the assassin. However, he soon regretted his “genius” attempt at humor, admitted it was a joke, and deleted the posts. By then, it was too late: numerous media outlets worldwide began reporting that he was Crooks, including Serbian media. Even today, nearly two days after the attempted assassination, the face of the wrong man remains on the most influential web portals and newspapers.
While Trump was giving a speech in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday around 6 pm (Pennsylvania time), he was shot from a nearby roof by a young man who was soon identified by the FBI as Thomas Matthew Crooks. Trump was slightly wounded, one man in the audience was killed, and Crooks himself was liquidated by the intelligence services on the spot.
The investigation is ongoing, so it is not yet known what was the motive of the assassin.
It is not clear what was the motive of the tweeter with the nickname “jewgazing” to claim that he was the assassin, but he later said that it was a joke. Although he deleted the posts in the meantime, the fact-checkers of the web portal LeadStories managed to save most of them.
The “joke” started when someone on Twitter alluded that “jewgazing” resembled a young man in a grey T-shirt and blond hair, whose photo appeared on the networks with claims that it was Crooks.
“Jewgazing” went along with the “joke” and continued to claim that he was the man they were looking for, and posted a photo of himself in the same pose as the guy in the grey shirt, with the following message: “Latest news: Trump’s assassin identified”. Then he reposted all those who believed in it.
This photo of him was also published by the media in Serbia. Some of them withdrew it in the meantime, and in some media, it remained. For example, it can still be found on the website Republika.
He also posted a short video from the car, in which he claims that he is the man they are looking for, which went viral.
“My name is Matthew Thomas Crooks. I hate Republicans, I hate Trump. And guess what? You got the wrong guy”, he said, and the video went viral.
🚨BREAKING: TROLL HAS BEEN FALSELY IDENTIFIED AS THOMAS MATTHEW CROOKS.
— Only Mob King 🇺🇸 (@OnlyMobKing) July 14, 2024
An X user with long blonde hair and glasses, known as @jewgazing, is currently being falsely identified as the alleged shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks. He is live-tweeting to clarify that it is not him.
“My… pic.twitter.com/7auc5qoSze
It seems that he soon repented of all this.
“I’m actually f***ed now bro it was jokes but the fbi is def coming to see me”, he wrote and locked the profile. In the meantime, he unlocked it, but there are no more disputed tweets. It is not known whether the investigators invited him for an interview in the meantime.
However, even though this “game” ended quickly, the posts had already gone viral and there was no going back. The face of this young man can be found on numerous world web portals, including the media in Serbia. That’s how it appeared on today’s front page of Alo, in today’s issue of Kurir, and on web portals such as Vecernje novosti, K1, Pink, Politika, as well as Blic and Espreso, which replaced the photos in the meantime.
Vecernje novosti quoted the statement of the fake assassin from the viral video.
“Before the assassination, he posted a video on social networks claiming the following: “I am Thomas Matthew Crooks. I hate Republicans, I hate Donald Trump”, Novosti wrote.
Crooks’ motives are still unknown. American media write that he is a registered Republican voter who recently graduated from high school and worked in the kitchen of a nursing home. As reported by the BBC, he was a member of the local shooting club, and CNN writes that on Biden’s order, a review of the security measures that were in force that day was initiated. In other words, the question arises as to how the intelligence services and their snipers could “miss” the shooter who came to the roof of the building with a semi-automatic rifle only 150 meters from Trump.
