jopatura said:
Now that they released that Crooks was out with a drone earlier in the day, I'm pretty settled on incompetent/malicious SS versus conspiracy theory with the shooter. The big hole to me was how did Crooks know what he would be able to get away with prior to actually shooting the gun - either he had to do prior recon or someone had to give him the info. Now does it make the SS look even worse that Crooks was able to fly a ******* drone? Absolutely. The crew they had that day was either really, really dumb or just not trying that hard.
This is just thinking out loud. I am not disagreeing or proposing a theory but going down the series of dead end paths of reasoning that would try to explain Crooks' actions.
The mentality of Crooks is full of contradictions. If he thought he was on a suicide mission, why ask for time off work and provide assurance to his boss that he would be back the next day rather than just no-show? Did he think his boss would call his parents on the landline and alert them that he was supposed to be at work instead of taking time off at the gun range that day? What 20 year old would give his boss his parents' cell phone number? Why was Crooks considering what his boss would think or do if he was on a suicide mission that the boss would have no means in which to interfere even if only by accident?
Crooks seems to have had rather bold confidence, or autism-level ignorance of human behavior, that nothing he did outside or on the edges of the security perimeter would be sufficient to draw attention and action from security. Using a range finder in the open and flying a drone on site the day before are pretty bold actions for someone that has a mission if they believe that their adversary is might notice and would intervene if detected. Those childlike beliefs and presumption of inaction by the USSS turned out to be, against seemingly 10000:1 odds, exactly what the USSS failed to do.
Crooks was planning to commit lethal violence but was utterly unprepared to defend himself if he was confronted prior to assembling his weapon at the shooting position. He had a remote detonator for some explosives but no pistol and seemingly no plan for what to do if someone confronted him while the rifle was disassembled in his backpack.
Reports seem to indicate that contrary to supposition of a folding stock, the weapon was just an AR rifle that he would have to fit the upper and lower together and engage the pivot pin and the takedow pin. There's no hope of accomplishing this abd taking defensive action after being confronted when someone says. "Hey you..."
It is hard to get inside the head of an assassin that builds no off-ramps and no branches into their plan with no apparent interest in either egress after succeeding in the act nor eluding detection or evasion while getting into position. He had to have heard the people yelling at or about him on the roof but didn't turn his head to look or pay them any mind. To say that he had ice water running in his veins to maintain focus on his quarry would be an understatement. If the theory that his original intention and motivation was a mass shooting at the Trump rally, instead of at another public place, those people nearer to him that were pointing and yelling would have been easy pickings but based on his actions, they didn't even seem to exist in Crooks' mind.
People on suicide missions for personal or ideological reasons with political motivation usually have a need to explain themselves to the world via a manifesto. Crooks and Stephen Paddock seem to be the only exceptions. Charles Whitman had a brain tumor which either was the motivation for his act or kept him from having a desire to explain his actions. If shooting Trump wasn't for ideological reasons of his own, what is left? Was Crooks self deluded or autistically ignorant of the consequences of shooting at someone under USSS protection or did he believe that someone or something would provide a means for him to escape by diversion of attention of the counter-snipers, whom he had looked in the eye through his range finder at one point?
These are all dead ends of rationalization with no apparent answers. It makes about as much sense as a happy abd well adjusted person with a living family that suddenly on a whim has a compulsion to drive off a cliff as they are cruising down the road either literally or metaphorically.
