Thomas Crooks A Behavioral Profile psychology humanbehavior trump

All right, hello everyone. This week, we are talking about what we have been getting a lot of questions about, and what a lot of people are talking about, is this gentleman by the name of Thomas Crooks and the Trump assassination attempt in general. We're going to do that through kind of the set of lenses that we typically use for something like this and kind of approach it almost as like a case study. Based on what we know now, we're recording this on July 26th. So, unless something comes out between the next few days of some evidence that we are unaware of, this is kind of what we're going on. And, typically, we wait until investigations and reports come out and everything gets compiled for us to compare to. But because of what we've known, because of what people have testified to already and been reported and corroborated, we're going to talk about some of the things that we know right now.

And this is a great case study for a number of reasons. One, obviously, to talk about this shooter, Thomas Crooks, because he fits in with every other shooter that we've ever discussed or that we talk about in class. It's also a great one to understand sort of security protocols, planning procedures, especially when it comes to communications, information sharing, and information flow as it goes up and down. Because this is a great one to look at of how things can really go wrong, even when you have all of the right information. I would say even if you have enough actionable information to intervene in a situation, how certain protocols and procedures — our own ones — can get in the way. And then, of course, it's a great case study on just human perception: on how humans look at events, how we attribute value to certain things, what we decide is important versus what actually is important. How people kind of can spin off the rails and go down these weird rabbit holes of stuff where you're just like, "How the— where the hell did this information come from?" or, "What are you talking about?" Because what this shows is that, one, a very simple plan by a determined opponent can work. It shows again how a low level of sophistication, a high level of organization, and access will allow you to pull off something like this. And how when we analyze stuff, I see a lot of experts — and some people I know who are legitimate experts — get a lot of things wrong because they're doing it from their perspective of what they know as how things work. Well, they've never carried out one of these attacks, so it's different, and you can't really unlearn how you see the world that way. And so it kind of gets in the way of how you interpret the events. I think that's just sort of a personal opinion.

So, there's a lot to get into, Greg. And we have a lot to go off of now that's been corroborated enough for us to at least talk on a podcast about it, I think. But I want to throw it to you to kind of get started here this morning, and we can jump into it from there.

Yeah. So, just briefly, and then I'll — if it's okay, I'll let you run your agenda. I mean, I love it. I think we've talked about it enough. The two reasons I think we waited this long were we wanted to hear from Chell and Watts. We wanted to hear from — you know, get their testimony on record, so then we can actually go back to something, either testimony. Well, and I wrote that down, Brian. I wrote down, "You can't impeach testimony you don't give." And the answers to questions were so, you know, watered down. It's like, "Oh, I can't say that because it's under investigation." "Well, was — did the guy have a gun?" "Well, it's hard to say." Just shut the (mouth), you know? So, I think that if we focus on the low level of sophistication, use the high level of organization and the access. If we focus on some of the things that the shooter did that should have been red flags that people were looking for, then we're going to get somewhere. Everybody knows the mistakes. I mean, mistakes are glaringly obvious, and it's so easy to armchair quarterback and go back and point to the mistakes. What we should be doing is using this as a proper after-action review to say, "Okay, how can we move forward from this and see those stress fractures that are likely going to stack up and help me stop an event like this before it occurs?"

Yeah, and that's exactly it: is that we can take what happened here and go, "All right, how do we not let this happen at the next event that we have?" Or, "How do we take this and learn," like you said, "learn from it, but in the sense that, all right, I go into this assuming this could happen to me." So, I want to learn about it so that it doesn't happen to me. I could fall victim to all of these different things that occurred because it was a — it was a number of things had to happen before he could take any shots or before he could carry out his attack, right? So, it's like, what are all these steps that were in there? And so, there's getting all these reports in and looking at it. What we're seeing so far, and what people have corroborated, is that this guy was spotted. So, Thomas Crooks, let's kind of start here by talking about him because he's been — I think this is one of the first ones where, actually, because people are so confused by it or they're like shaking their head — because he fits the profile of like a school shooter or something, they're like, "Well, wait, why would he do this? What's going on?" This is the first one where everyone isn't saying, jumping to the sort of the motive behind it. Because it's — because just looking at what he searched on his computer and where he looked, it was like it's seemingly all over the place, just like all of these people are, right? Anyone who goes out and carries out one of these attacks. And so there's like no manifesto blaming something yet that they've released. I mean, maybe there is, you know? So, we can't now attribute it to something. No one's going to say, "Well, Joe Biden said put a bullseye on Trump, that's what they started with, so that's why he did it." It's like, "Well, this one isn't as clear," and everyone wants to do that for different political reasons or to get more time on the air, on the news, whatever it is. But you and I know that that's junk. And so, can you explain why those things don't matter? We'll start there, I think.

Of course. So, one of the searches he did is for the Oxford shooters, and specifically what happened to the parents. Okay, that speaks volumes to me. He has a sister that he loves, he has parents that he doesn't want to insult or embarrass. So, what he's trying to do, he's trying to look for a plausible way out: "What are the legal ramifications? What did they know? What can I do ex parte (outside the venue) so it's not obvious that they had anything to do?" "I know they're going to get searched," (I'm speaking as this dead kid), "I know the house is going to get searched, I'm not stupid, I can read that. But I'm going to leave everything in my van or my vehicle, and the same thing with the bomb things, so I don't link anything to my parents." Okay, that to me is hugely important.

One of the other things is he spent about as much time looking up on major depression disorder as most of us would. I mean, I have a "brain cloud," I know, because I look up everything on WebMD, you know? And so, "Okay, well, it's not funny if he had major depression disorder." First of all, he was undiagnosed. Second of all, nobody came and said he was a depressed kid. Not one person came and said, "This was a deeply depressed kid." So, why would you look that up? Look, when we were in St. Louis, I had a UTI that was so bad that every time I peed, it looked like a Diwali celebration, you know? So, the idea is that I had to look that up. So, if somebody looks back at my search history, what are they going to say, Brian? They're going to say at that time, at that place, "What if he was looking for an out? What if he wanted to give an excuse that his parents could easily go to, 'Hey, he was depressed, and that's why he did it'"? Look, I want all of the good things that come from this. I want to go down in history. I want people to understand. He could have gone home, Brian. People took his photo, they followed him around, they knew that he was there. And even though that line of communication turned into a sh** sandwich, the person that did know that they were onto him was Thomas Crooks. "They now have my photograph. Yeah, they know that there's a ladder up. They've seen me moving around and have chased me at least twice that we know about it." But what did he do? He continued to come back because he knew in his mind that this was his best chance to go down in history. "The target's right in front of me, he's going on stage, nobody's stopping me, so I'm going to carry it out." I guarantee a kid (who was) disorganized had a threshold, and if he met this threshold for pulling the pin and going home, okay, he would have gone home. And, Brian, they never got close to that threshold. So, he was like, "Look, he's on a roof, doing the inchworm with people filming him and saying, 'There he is, and he has a gun.'" He fully knew at that time. Do you know how much guts that took? And people are going, "Hey, he's a criminal." Yeah, I get it. But do you know that at that point, Brian, he said, "Okay, I've crossed this point of no return, and now I'm here, and I'm going to continue this," and he even took the shots. That shows a very low level of sophistication, very high level of organization. And that's what we see in these kids over and over. A sloppy shooter is very different, and they get wrapped up very quickly, and they only have a couple of targets, right? And why? Because they've got a higher level of sophistication, relying more on weapons or technology, and maybe their organization level isn't that low. Look at the Robb Elementary shooter, okay? Gets into a crash on the way because he's got the "happy head," and at the accident scene is shooting at people. Do you see the difference there? So, stop trying to force. Take a look at what you have and let, like Plinko, let it fall where it may. And as they start stacking up, what do you do? You're getting a more clear picture, each piece of evidence that falls in.

So, what do you think? What would — now we're getting into the — we have — we have to speculate with this question, just I'm asking based on what — yeah, he's — yeah, right. We can't ask him. Well, I just want to kind of caveat that because no one does, and everyone just starts saying, you know, spouting off opinions, and people take that as what could have happened. But, you know, let's say, you know, he was confronted by police, you know, before he got on that roof, what do you think he likely would have done?

He's smart enough that he would have talked himself out of it, and he would have gone home. He would have left his vehicle with all the evidence, and he would have picked a future target. But too many of the things were in the plus column for him to do that, right? So, he may have also been smart enough to say, "Hey, I'm just a kid," then gone back to his backpack and started the process over. But the contact is the important part. Look, kill, contact, capture, right? That — that's the stuff that we did when we built all our combat intervention programs. So long, you go, "Why is contact so important?" Because just by going up and deleting this person as a potential suspect, how long does that take? A minute, two minutes? Walking across the street? If he runs, that's telling. Come on.

And that's the — yeah, that — I mean, that's the diffusion of responsibility that occurs when you have multiple agencies and different people talking to one another. "And I reported this," "and that's what I did." And then someone else is supposed to go do that, but it didn't get down to them. Or maybe I'm in a position where I'm not supposed to leave. I'm only supposed to stand here and report things, and someone else is supposed to be the contact team. I mean, there's all these different — this is how it plays out because those are so planned and organized. The problem with that is when, you know, you're — it's — it's where the seams and gaps (are). When you're doing anything in our agency, anything with different teams, anything with people you haven't typically worked with, even if you're all, you know, really, really good at what you do, it's those seams and gaps where there's always problems. So, that's one: the seam and gap in security that they had here with this place. The seam and gap in communication that they had with one another. I mean, that's where things happen, you know? They don't — that's where the — the ones that aren't obvious, I should say, happen.

Let's go before we go too much further. So, one of the things that we can look — I get paid for my opinion, so that means that I give you my professional opinion. When I'm just giving opinion-based testimony, where it's not my professional opinion, where I go, "Well, what I'm thinking," okay, that's different. That's completely different standards. So, what I'm telling you right now is stuff that I've researched and stuff that I'm willing to go to bat and testify to. It's a very different standard.

Well, and right now, unless some new thing comes out that we don't know (at the time of recording)...

Yeah, then we change. We're scientists, we change our opinion. Okay, that's the way things go. So, I will tell you to take a look at the evidence that we've got on the ground and what it tends to show. So, we both know that Director Ray, Director Chell went in and were very evasive on their questioning. And it's going to bug you, but let's go to the ladder. There's no question that our boy not only bought a ladder, Thomas Crooks brought it to the scene. You and I, whether it was the ladder that he used to get up or the air conditioner, and whether the ladder that was in all the videos was his or not, does not matter. But you know who it matters to? Ray and Chell. You know why? Because, Brian, you get caught with your hand in a cookie jar, you get caught with your pants down. Here is a black eye waiting to happen, and somebody goes up and goes, "Hey, dude, the ladder was right there. It wasn't his ladder!" I pick things that I can fight that nobody can prove or disprove because I'm embarrassed, Brian. I'm embarrassed what all the things... Go ahead.

It's important to know for the purposes of the investigation, know the specific details. Like, you have to know that. But what we're saying is that doesn't matter if it was his or it was there or whatever. A ladder was used, and he had intent by buying one, so he intended to use that to get up on some (surface). So, like we're just saying, for the takeaway, for the lesson, for the story, right? It's important, and it doesn't matter that it was already there. But, meaning, he took steps. He knew it was there, he had access, he demonstrated his intent by doing that. And then now, with whatever it plays out, we know one was there, it was used. It was used by the teams that went up on the roof, it was used in some (capacity) by him. So, it's like they're doing it for the purposes of, like you said, one, you have to have the detailed investigation, know exactly what happened, and also to say, "Well, yeah, they didn't use ours," as if like, "Oh, okay, good job." What the f**k does it matter, right?

But in thousands of investigations, the person will go, "Yes, I killed her with the barbell, then I saw off her head, and I put the head in my gosh-damn bowling bag, and I took it out to my car, but I was not speeding when that cop stopped me." So, you understand what I'm trying to say? So, that's what that ladder has become. The ladder has become an albatross where people can argue over it rather than arguing over your chain of responsibilities. Now, let's add a little bit to that, right? When somebody says, "Hey, I contacted this, I did that," okay, the idea is that you're trying to diffuse the blame, you're trying to push that blame on other people. And you've gone with me to many locations, and you've done investigations on your own. Have you ever seen an event where it was a carnival or a fair or whatever else, where there were agencies supporting others, county sheriff, local police, and everything else? Do they, after the first hour of vigilance, start forming social circles and potting up and having little conversations on their own? Absolutely, that happens with everyone. Yeah. So now you're in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania, and you've got a couple of Secret Service agents, and you've got some ATF, and you've got some snipers. You don't think you're going to want to wander over and talk to those folks? You don't think that there's a gap that's caused just by this lack of operating together all the time? So now we take a look at that side.

Now, let's flip the coin for a minute. So, we know that our boy, Thomas Crooks, researched porn, and we know he was a game player, and specifically like some shoot-'em-up games. So what? Well, so that tells me a lot. Just like, "I want to go down in history, I want to control my narrative." I don't care where you come down on the side of pornography. I've got a daughter, and I can tell you exactly where I come down on it, you get what I'm trying to say? So, my idea is that's not something that we joke about or I would engage in jokes about. But why does he do it? He does it because he can control it. He can control the volume, he can control the content, he can pause and stop and change. Okay. Why does he do a shooter game? That's the same thing. "I have an identity, Brian. I create a manifesto in the game. I create an autonomous region that I control. And guess what? If I get shot, I'm coming back. And I'm coming back, and I'm going to change the weapons. I'm going to keep trying till I get it right." These are things that the highly organized mind speaks out, and these are things that give me a low sophistication feedback, and they give me the access. Pornography gives me the access to an ejaculation, which releases chemicals in my brain. Yeah. That's the same thing that shooter game gives. And planning for this shooting, the — the president, the former president, gave him that same high. It gave him that same high for months, if not a year, before this event occurred.

And video games are a great one because it's — or a great example and analogy to use — because that's why they're so, one of the reasons why they're so popular, is because they play into our psychological and sociological needs. So, in that case, you're talking about like, "I can create a new avatar of myself, something I sort of kind of maybe aspire to be." Some people create, you know, it's like almost an exact copy of themselves where, like, you could go be like, "Oh my God, dude, this character is you," or, "It's a different version of you." And it's all — it's all normal to do that. And that's why those, like, alternative reality games, the role-playing games, all that stuff are like so popular because it just plays into our psychology. It's just — it's like a natural extension of humans of how we think and allows us sort of this outside perspective, and we can play. It's almost like you are experiencing the world from an outer self, you know what I mean, like outside of yourself. And so, it's very engaging that way. But that it's a great reason, it's another example of how it just — and same thing with pornography, meeting, you know, psychological and sociological needs and biological.

Again, that's not endorsing it. We're not endorsing that, Brian. But what we're saying is it occurs, and when we see it occur, I'll give you — let me give you a couple of more points to touch. He didn't steal the gun, he didn't buy the gun. He went in and borrowed his dad's gun and told his dad, "I'm taking the gun and going to the shooting range." He did go to the shooting range. He did go and buy ammo. None of those people — this is not like Cho at Virginia Tech — none of those people said, "Hey, I had a stone-cold killer standing in front of me." Why? Because they had a kid. They had a kid that was a normal kid, and that didn't stand out in any manner. But he wanted to. This is not your average ne'er-do-well, "I'm going to get back at society, I was sh** on my entire life." One of the kids interviewed — he never tried to make a conversation, he was an odd kid, he was bullied. And, you know what? They're not true. There was...

Because there was a kid, you know, that they interviewed. And I mean a kid, he was — I mean he's 20, whatever, same age as Crooks or older, whatever, but young, young adult. And he was doing the — because I kind of want to get your take on this — because there were interviews like, "Yeah, he was, he got bullied a lot at school, and people kind of picked on him, he was by himself." And they were asking, "Like, what kind of things did they say to him, or did they call him, or what names did they use?" And he could provide zero details. Like, he was like, "Well, I don't really remember, but I know they were mean to him, and I know — and I don't really remember what they called him or what they said." So, either A, I was getting the feeling like he was just talking, or he was one of the people that did talk sh** to this kid, you know, growing up and didn't want to admit to (it), you know what I'm saying? Like, but it was — there was — when you can't provide details, it's not like, "Oh, everyone called him school shooter." You know what I mean? Like, that stuff comes out. That's what's happening now every time there's a shooting, we go and go, "What went wrong? What injustice did this person fall into?"

But I will tell you that we have to take a look at some simple things. Like, do you know that he used a rifle and that he was on a roof and he portrayed a sniper? Actually, he looked up distance and other snipers. Why? Because psychologically, he felt a need to remove himself. He's a lot like the guy that shot McKinley back in 1901. When you take a look at the background on him, but the McKinley shooter had recently lost a job, and so he goes to the dark side, and he comes out, it starts spreading out. But the idea is he wanted to do it in a public venue with a person that couldn't refuse going out and shaking hands and talking in public. So, that's why he was researching this stuff. So, why is it important that he had a drone, remote ISR? Why is it important that he had a bomb? Because a bomb is a remote thing. It doesn't have a face. I can emplace it and use it as a distraction or a device to kill people. What is that profile starting to build? That he didn't want to go like the McKinley shooter and walk right up to the president and shoot him twice. He wanted to maintain the distance. He didn't worry about getting caught. He didn't have an escape plan because he fully knew that this was his — he knew this was going to be the time that he was going to do. Was not walking out alive. He knew he was going to get killed. Like, the likelihood was so high. And that's part of his organization. And that's why he kept his sophistication low enough that no matter what plan — look, if the ladder gets compromised, "I've got another way up because there's an air conditioner." If that roof is compromised, "I have another way up because I have my vehicle roof," or, "I have another location that's scouted out." He was going to do this. He's a determined shooter. And he's a determined shooter because he wants his place in history. He wants to say, "This was me at this time." And he looked up people that were similar to him to show, "Wow, man, Wikipedia history. Look at this hero that I'm looking at that's there." And that fed part of his ego. He's got a fragile break in his ego somewhere, whatever it was. It wasn't so psychological that he couldn't hold together a job, that he couldn't buy a box of ammo, that he couldn't drive. Nobody said, "Wow, he was driving erratically, and he parked in an odd location." None of that was part of it. So, throw that sh** out and stop trying to force it to fit. Sometimes shooter profiles are like "fetch." Stop trying to make "fetch" work. Stop sitting there and saying that we're going to do some downfield blocking on this. Look, if I got a drone and I got a gun and there's a former president in town and I say, "Hey, by the way, I'll be back in an hour," that's enough for me to say out of all the people that we took a look at, Brian, he's the only one that fit that specific profile.

So, stop making this big thing go smaller. Take the flashlight and go to a laser and take a look at what he said and what he did in the days and weeks before, and what would that tend to show a reasonable person. And even to the point, which all these guys do, they research other attacks and other school shooters and everything. But, you know, I know the reports were that his parents — he told his parents he was going to go to the range or whatever. And then when his dad couldn't get a hold of him, and he wasn't back yet, he was calling. And then when his parents heard about the shooting when it occurred, apparently, they called the police and said, "I think my son is involved with this." So, I just — everyone think about that for a second. You turn on the news and you see this happen, and your first thought is, "Oh, sh**! That might be my kid." It means you knew. It means you didn't — not that you knew it happened, or he was planning that, or knew he was going to do that. You knew that it was a possibility. You knew that you had someone who did not go along with normal, you know, ways of doing things, that had whatever issues he had — because we don't know, maybe he had some chemical imbalance his entire life and whatever. I mean, that doesn't matter in a sense. But it's like, his parents knew that, "My son could be one of these people." And so, how many parents called that day, Brian?

You're onto something right there. Because do you think there were nine other parents that called and said, "Hey, maybe that's my kid?" One. And where has that happened before? Where have we seen that? Exactly, that was Ethan Crumbley. Come on. So, but hold on because I think that's a very important point. Folks, write this down: If you're listening to what we're saying, we're not anti-pattern. We're saying that patterns emerge, but we're saying read the pattern that emerges. Don't force something to fit your pattern. And that's the problem when we have a very rigid thing: "It has to be this, has to be this, has to be this."

Yeah. Okay, then let's explain that because that's exactly what I've seen people I even know do where it's like, "You're going, 'This is what I think happened,' then you're collecting evidence to support your claim." But that's basically the definition of confirmation bias. But, of course, right. And that's why — how am I supposed to do this then? So, if I'm listening to this and you're going, "Well, don't force a pattern, let the pattern emerge," how do I let that pattern emerge? Meaning, "Okay, we've got all of these different data points, these different collections. We have this, this, this, this." I'm looking up at the stars in the sky and each one of these stars is some — one of these pieces of information that's come out. How do I make the Big Dipper? How do I make, you know, any constellation out of that and have it be correct versus just creating one out of my own mind and the need to see a human face and everything?

So, we don't have the hours it would take to unpack what Brian just said because it's spot on. And he's talking about a galaxy and a universe. I would say, let's just talk about our solar system. Okay. So, we call Mars "the Red Planet," and we call Jupiter, you know, "the Ring Planet," and Jupiter is also a giant. Okay. So, when we start coming up with those terms, it's because something that we've seen all along, and those are very descriptive terms. Okay. The Earth is "the Big Blue Marble." Okay. So, I would say, instead of looking at all of it, because our ancient ancestors looked at that same galaxy that Brian was talking about, laying on the lawn at night and looking up, and they said, "Hey, that's Sagittarius," or, "That looks like a crab," or, "You know, this looks like whatever." And depending on where you were on the face of the planet, you came up with those descriptors. I'm saying, make it even smaller. Make it just a nine — and now eight because Pluto got the shaft. But if we take a look at those things that mattered to Thomas Crooks, Brian, if I come up to you and say, "Hey, let me borrow any gun." Okay. It wasn't — it was a long-range rifle. Now, do you think he gave a sh** that it was a black AR-15 with a magazine? No, that just happened to be what was available. You know what he didn't choose? He didn't choose a pistol because that didn't play into his reckoning at all. "I'm not going to shoot a cop before the thing, even if they come up and contact me, take the picture. I'm not going to act out violently. This is what I'm going to do. This is my plan, and I need a long-range rifle to do it." So, if he would have found a flintlock that he was familiar with that could shoot 160 yards, and that was the only rifle, he was going to use that rifle. So, again, we're talking about an agnostic thing. "I'm target agnostic here. The president is going to be here, that's where I'm going to go. I'm roof agnostic. Well, this one's outside of the perimeter, it's an easy thing." So, that's a low level of sophistication that I can — I can access when I talk to my parents. For my parents to call, there would have to have been some leakage. He had to make a comment or make a statement, "Hey, if you don't see me later, I'm off to shoot the president." Those type of things occurred somewhere. And, Brian, that's just not how clinically normal things function. Like, Chell would pop hot because Chell's angry all the time. And Chell's a dyed-in-the-wool Republican and been her entire life. And, as a matter of fact, we've got stuff in the house that when her parents (Democrats) come over, Chell has to take and put in a drawer. So, but the one thing you know is Chell's never going to attempt an assassination on anybody. Chell wants her say, and that's all she wants, her say. But she doesn't ever need her way. I would tell you that if we take a look at Thomas Crooks' friends — because he had him and his girlfriend — I bet he was a loving, kind, wonderful person. I bet his engineering degree made sure that there was a degree of specificity in everything he did. He didn't just make that bomb, he made a missile that went up and blew out a little parachute and came down. He showed other people, "Hey, if I take 10 sparklers, look at the things I can do, Brian." I'll guarantee if we dig deep enough, those directions, we'll find stuff.

And that's — I'm waiting to see when some of the details come out about some of the devices that he built because it's very — they're being very specific with the language that they used to describe it. They said they were viable and not armed, or something like, "or not on received," (meaning the receiver had not been turned on or something). It was very specific. Like, "No, they were —" what I took from it was, "these were operational, they would have worked," right? And it was not on or it was not armed or something like that. And just meaning, they acknowledge the fact that he built a successful bomb that would have worked. And that — that's all. So, as those details come out, it'll be — did he do with those — it'll be interesting to see. Well, hang on, and we don't necessarily know why. Like, maybe he just forgot to, you know what I mean, to arm it or like that, and then, "Oh, sh**! I still have my plan!" You know? Yeah, he did have a few things on his mind that day.

But, you know, you actually brought something up I want to hit on. And what you're talking about too is why it's important, the lexicon, the language we use to talk about some of this stuff. So, we have a vernacular lexicon that we teach in our courses, we talk about, we use it even here on The Human Behavior Podcast, right? And for a specific reason. Like, we use terms like "organization," "sophistication," and "access." We use things like "seams and gaps," even our term like "file folders," you know what I mean, when we talk about experiences, right, the "Rolodex." Because, one, that's a visual way I can understand. Well, it's because when someone gets in the — "Well, everyone uses the term, you know, it's schema, right, of how our mind mentally we work and process information and access and sort." But if I ask you, "Well, like, I can't — I don't know what a schema looks like." And you're like, "Oh, like a schematic." I'm like, "Sh**! I've never seen one of those." It's like, "Okay, do you know what a file folder is?" Like, let's say on your computer, when you click on that, you open it up. What else could be in there? Well, there could be other folders in there, or just files. And then that leads you to another thing. "Okay, I can visualize that: the Rolodex, the file cabinet that I open amongst other entire room full." So, it's a visual way for us to kind of get a point across or to understand a concept.

But when you get into — when we get into this — and this is part of the reason when people say like "lone wolf" or something along those terms, or, "was inspired by," or, "did it because he heard this," like, we're attributing values to things and it really gets in the way of how we look at people. And I think a lot of the times, because people go, "Why do you guys use all these terms? You use this, or you're just trying to sound smart." It's like, "No, no, no, I'm trying to not get you to misattribute some information to something where it shouldn't." I mean, you even brought it up too now with the online diagnosis. Like, that's — we're so far past the WebMD, Greg. Like, everyone on social media, everyone says that they have like ADD or ADHD, or now autism is the big one, everyone's calling themselves "slightly autistic." Then there's all these other ones that people do, the terms like "narcissist" and "gaslighting," and what's the other one, "Dunning-Kruger." You see all these terms like, "Hey, that thing has actual meaning, and you're using it incorrectly." Even with him, it's like, "Okay, were you diagnosed with this?" Like, I can, you know what I mean, if I say I have some, it's because multiple doctors have been like, "Brian, you have this problem." It's very easy to see, you know, you're exactly — and you got medic— yeah, exactly. You can show me on a pie graph. But the thing is, it's sort of — it really clouds how we look at these different issues. And so, the same thing when people talk about, "Well, there was a threat from Iran. Did they have something to do with this?" It's like, "Okay, when — when is there not a threat from one of our foreign adversaries? Is there ever a time when they go, 'Hey, the Intel Community goes, 'Hey, guys, this month, no threat, they're standing down this month''?" It's like, "No, there's things that are always present that are always there." But what I was bringing up, the language in the lexicon, was how you're talking about Crooks and some of the things that he did and said. You're doing it in a specific manner, and, you know, to get to the point of that is, why then is it important to look at it this way and not about his motive to do it? Because this is a big thing that we talk about, how we always say like motive doesn't really matter. Like, I — because it doesn't in a sense. But like, if I'm investigating it, yeah, I want to look at his searches because I want to know — I want to know like where his head was at, what he was thinking, what Crooks was thinking. But the — oh, that came — that came out really fast too. But, no, it's still fascinating to me that we want to create — we have to create a story and we have to create a story to justify it in our heads. We have to have one that makes sense. But we're so all over the place because — yeah, right. And I think that this is also what it makes more complicated because then someone's going to push back and say, "Well, no, he had these bombs built, which meant he maybe wanted to do this," or, "he had this built," or, "he said this," or, "he searched this specific term that means that — that, you know, that means that he wanted to do this for a political reason." And it's like, "No, you're saying that that's not what Crooks was saying." So, how do I get better? Your narrative. Yeah, yeah, exactly, you're right, right. But then, 'cause everyone says, "You got to — you got to take someone else's perspective and you got to look at it through their eyes." It's like, "Well, how am I supposed to do that?" Like, how did you just say this, this — yeah, this what I'm saying. It's like, "How do I get into Crooks' head to know what he was thinking?" Because it's likely very different than the way I think in a lot of ways, but in terms of the decisions he's going to make. But there's a lot of overlap between maybe the way he thinks and the way every other human thinks and sees the world. So, I think that's too where it gets a little bit — the turbidity starts to form there because there's some overlap between Crooks and maybe me reading the story, but what we would actually do are very different things. So, can you kind of explain that a little bit?

The likelihood scale, the likelihood scale. I talk about things that are more likely and more unlikely. So, the more likely they are, this is a most likely course of action. And then in there, I look for the most dangerous course of action. So, I'll give you an example: how to look at the smallest piece of evidence and how you can extrapolate certain theories from that and then prove them by going out and searching for evidence. We know that he searched for pornography. So, is it likely that it was horrible, vicious, snuff porn? That's the first question. Part two of that question is, how do we know it's likely not kid porn? Because the way information goes, Brian, those would have been released in the first 15 minutes of the profile on Thomas Crooks. "He looked at dangerous beating porn," this and that. So, why is the porn important? What kind was it? Was it loving? Was it healthy? Was it, you know, domination and this and that? Those help give us a window into how he liked to get off, and that's important. Those talismans, those markers, those things that he has that are around him. It's not to say he was a good or a bad guy. Clearly, he wasn't the best guy on the block because he tried to shoot the former president, right? But the idea is, if I really — yeah, it killed somebody and then injured two other people. Let's not forget all the millions and billions of dollars that are going to be spent looking at Thomas Crooks. That profile of the porn is hugely important to a guy like me.

Now, what about the bomb? Was the bomb mobile? Was it easy to carry? Was it too big? Was it a vehicle-borne IED? Was it to place on the road so if he was escaping it would cover his escape? Was it a distraction? Did it not work or did he decide (not to use it) for some other reason? Those are the things we dig deep in. Okay. We don't sit there because motive takes us. "Well, he clearly hated Trump!" While he had photos and researched President Biden as well. "Okay, well, he hated the Republicans!" Well, he kind of made donations to an independent and then did these other things. See, Brian, every time we go to motive, motive will turn up just opinions, and those opinions can't be bolstered, and they can't be built, and they can't be defined. So, I always use the scientific method and say, "Here's the information that we got. What makes most sense?" And that's going to help me out. And so all the stuff about the bomb are going to give us a clear picture of Thomas Crooks. Thomas Crooks' letters or writings. Did he leave something that we don't know about yet? And how would we know with Watts and Chell? Do you get what I'm trying to say? We don't know all the cards are on the table yet, do we? And most of the people that knew, "Holy sh**! It happened. This is the worst thing that could have happened on my watch." Most of those people are now fired or searching for a hole or trying to build up an excuse around them rather than trying to say, "How do we prevent this from occurring again?"

And I think part of what gets in that way or is because there's a lot of — um — study of sort of like victimology, you know? Is that that sort of it can — you know, I look back at, you know, people can say, "Remember Bian and Bono?" Right? They — they killed a lot of prostitutes, and people like, "Okay, well, was it, you know, because their mother was a prostitute and they have this psychological..." No, they had access. It was really easy to get victims. Very, very easy to get the victim. And then once they learned it, "Oh, hey, sh**! This works, let's keep doing it," and getting — "we'll get better at it." And if you think about that very simply, you know, that's — that's how these things occur. That's how criminals operate because that's how humans operate. You know, if I have — if I find a way to get — it's very easy for me to get a customer for us, Greg, and I went, "Wow, I only took these few steps and they immediately hired us!" What do you think I'm going to do on everyone after that? I'm going to go —

I'm going to go, "I just want to do that."

Exactly. "I want to do that all the time." And so, so that we — we get wrapped around like who the target was when it often matters less than what people think. And we go, "Yeah, but it's got to be because it's a polarizing figure," or, "you know, if it — if it was done to Biden, they would have said, you know, 'Oh, it's because he was inspired by something Trump said.'" And then people were trying to do that at the beginning of this one too. It's like, "Well, he was inspired by something Biden said." It's, "No, no, you that does not cause you to, you know, carry out this attack." It's just a number of other issues that you have to —

But wait a minute. If it did, if it did, where would we see that? I would have tattoos. I would paint the inside of my room. I would be gluing up articles on the wall and stuff. This is not that kid. Now, you want to talk about Adam Lanza, did Adam Lanza have some troubles? Did — did he leak in a whole bunch of different, you know, manners? That's not this kid. So, what we're trying to do is we're trying to reverse-engineer this kid to meet our profiles. So, I can say, "So, there, I warned you, I told you." We got to stop doing that. What we got to do is we got to play the hand that we're dealt now and take a look at these factors that are influencing a potential decision. Then we draw a reasonable conclusion that this is — this kid is more dangerous than that kid in this environment. It's that simple.

And, and so, so this is a great explanation of what you mean by the likelihood scale. So, everyone wants a, you know, some sort of computational analysis, some data point, some percentage saying, "All right, this person is 80% likely," or something to — to carry this out, or — or this is (going to) act — happen.

Oh, it's going to...

Exactly. We want — we — we want a percentage of what — what's the likelihood of this occurring, occurring in this situation. And that's not how we use likelihood because you can't in these different situations. There's no you — you — you can't use, you know, Bayes' theorem, statistical analysis to — to — to draw the conclusion with — with a number. You can do exactly what you just said right there. And this is it's — it's — you're — you're at the event, there's a crowd of people. Who's more likely to — does it look more likely that — yeah, it's who's more likely in this moment in time so that (I) can make a decision about what to do? And then maybe that — that changes. Maybe I go up to Crooks, and he's just like, he's got some mental health issues, he's lost from his parents. Okay, good. Now it's not him. Now I can get him help. Now, who's the most likely? And that's — that's the idea behind everything for — for just decision-making in general because you have to make a decision now. I have to put all of this information together and get it in a usable chunk format that I can operationalize. And that's using likelihood is the — the — the most logical way to do it because it's based on artifacts and evidence, and it's based on what you know in that given time. There could have been someone else in a parking lot that was giving off some cues that had nothing to do with this where — where at that moment in time for that person in that area, (you) go, "Okay, well, in my area that I have to cover right now, this person's the most likely. I should maybe go contact them." You get what I'm saying? And now that was just a dope deal going on or that was a whatever, you know, it doesn't matter what it is.

No, no. Let's take a look at that. Would you say that it's likely that if police would have — you know, that — that my glasses look wonky today, sorry — would you agree that if somebody took a peek into Crooks' vehicle, it would have been interesting enough for them to go, "Holy crap!" and want to look more? Yes. What about his backpack? Yes. What about the fact that he was walking around with the drone at least twice in the hours before conducting what's clearly an ISR event? What could have been another reasonable explication? He's a high school or a college journalist, and he's taking photos. He's working for the FBI. None of those fit. Was it more than one agency and more than one type of agent that he popped hot for? Yeah. The first cop that he popped out is why was he avoiding getting checked in? Okay. Then the second one was, "Well, why is he doing these other things?" And then somebody goes, "Hey, I just had this interesting kid. Look, I got a photo of him." And other people go, "That's the kid I saw." Okay. So, how many others in this crowd of tens of thousands of people, Brian, popped hot? Nobody. So, first of all, our message is getting through because they're using a gating mechanism and saying, "This person is interesting." And then it (the) training fell short because when something's interesting, you have to investigate. How many interesting things do you have to investigate at your scene? Every one of them. Because that baseline anomaly is where the danger hides. And if you wanted to look at some of the things that were going on and you wanted to say, "These are incongruent signals," Brian, did incongruent signals stick out in your mind in the moments after the shooting when you saw the videos?

Yeah, they did. And that's where you go, and that's where you start, not the motive, you know? Because motive is so nebulous, it could be anything. And because of the context of the situation. So, would — would some of this, let's say besides obviously before the rifle and just him walking around, him, the drone, if it had been the county fair, would that have been still interesting but less interesting? Well, of course, because it's a different — different event, and it's a different context. It's like, in what — and what's crazy to me and why everyone saw it is like, in this context, it's — it's there's only — it's binary at that point. It's either A, this kid has some issue, he's lost or whatever is going on, or B, like, no, this is it, this is the time that — that I need to go intervene. And this isn't bashing on the people that are there because obviously they were trying to do something and they did a good thing. They were saying they were following on — well, just like the, you know, I'm talking about even before that. You know, this is when it gets into that — that sort of this — this diffusion of responsibility and how communication works and how ineffective it can be in the — in the times that you really need it. And it's — it's like what a lot of us — a lot of people have a hard time understanding. It's like, "So you're telling me it was a bunch of, you know, simple human errors that — that allowed for the situation to occur?" And my answer is yes. It — it — it really is a (series of) steps that weren't — or boxes that weren't checked, steps that were not taken that — that should have been. And for — for all kinds of different contributing factors to that. And if some of them wouldn't been there, if it had just been, you know, one agency controlled the whole thing, would — could it have gone differently? Yeah, maybe. It — maybe it was. But that's not the answer, right? The solution to it isn't just, "Okay, well, now we do it this way, and it's just one team, they control everything." It's like, "Well, no, hang on. You have to look at all of these different contributing factors that allowed the situation to occur, assign some sort of value to it, and how important they were, and what you can — how you can use that in the future." And I — I don't see that — that type of analysis. It's the, you know, what type of scope he had and and, you know, it was a coll—

Let me ask you a simple question. With all of your employments and all the time you were in a combat zone, did you ever see anybody fall asleep because they were tired even though it was a dangerous environment? Absolutely. Did you ever see somebody get so hot that they took their eye off the glass because they had to go throw a piss or take a drink or get into some shade because if they didn't, they were afraid they were going to die? Yes. Those are human behavior factors and the limits of human performance. Those situations, thank God, in that specific instance didn't lead to that person or somebody very close to them getting killed. But in other instances, 50 feet away or 50 miles away or 5,000 miles away, it did cause that. Now here you add a number of things: "the perfect storm" of little things that come together that make a situation more dangerous. And when we go to these meetings, this is what I'm trying to say, we go to these meetings, nobody plans on that. When we were at Plais for that ultra-secret thing, I don't go any attribution, and they were showing us how this thing deployed. The idea was, I raised the question, "Hey, what's the turning radius on that?" And they go, "Why does that matter?" And I was like, "Well, I've been to Iraq and Afghanistan, and then, guess what? Those — those streets that you go down are really tight, and you can't turn this thing around. How are you going to escape? How far can it run with the — the oil pan shot?" Do you remember the Strykers? Do you remember driving around in those sons-of-b****es with the metal things to hold your duffel bags on the outside, right? And you remember having to take those off because the screens and the things were utilized to stop an RPG, but you couldn't go down the streets with them. So, there are things that we do, Brian. We took off our gosh-damn boots and put on our running shoes, or, or, you know, today we didn't wear eye-pro, or we looked left and and we didn't... Those are all things that fall on the likelihood scale and the in the Arcadia scale that nobody else considers. How much water did you have? Where did the guy throw a piss? Did he piss before that? Did he encounter anybody in those 10,000 people were talking back about the shooter that he — that he said something? Did he post something there at the last minute? Did he really intend to kill the cop? Did he fire any shots at the cop? Those things flex on the likelihood and they paint a picture, and that's the best picture that we have to start breaking down.

And, and you know, I — I go back to — for a lot of the big takeaways is — is what I — what I kind of started with is the that really it's those — those seams and gaps are — are the most important places that we — we don't think about or don't look at. And this is why, you know, we do it goes back to our parking lot analogy. Look, the — the — the periphery, the seams in the gaps, like, who hangs out there? Okay, there it's — it's not typical. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong or suspicious, but there's a reason you chose to do something that wasn't typical. Now, maybe you pride yourself on, "This is how I get my exercise," or, "I don't want to go and get my — my door dinged and — and my car hit and whatever, and I'm not lazy." Fine, that's a — that's — that's intent. You have intent behind your actions outside of just going shopping here. And that's different. So, so he had intent that was different than everyone else at the event. Now, whether you — so different that people commented on it. But — but, and and meaning like, whether you're you're — you were you were pro- or anti-Trump, you have an intent when you go there. Your intent is to see the speech and to, you know, either be a part of it or — or protest it or whatever. Like, there's — there's a — or you're there as part of a security element, or either you're working and you're setting up the stand. Everyone has a freaking reason to be there. And so you have to fall into one of those things. There is no random showing up and just, "Oh, walk around and see what's going on." No, that doesn't — that's not how people behave ever. We have so much less free will than we think we do. And so that, I think, that's the biggest reason why people don't understand some of the stuff that we talk about. It's like, "Well, no, I made this decision." It's like, "No, you didn't. You were going along with the crowd." And that's how hum — real — that —

Exactly. Look, Brian, do you remember the video of the stage right after the shooting? They're trying to hustle the former president off and get him to that vehicle. And there's a scrum that's going on. And the bearded veteran with the — the hat, you know, of his service, stands up with a beer in one hand and his middle finger up in the other hand, and he's screaming obscenities. Okay, everybody else that's uninitiated, that doesn't do human behavior pattern recognition analysis, would have said, "Keep an eye on that guy." Was that guy any threat to anybody but himself? Nah. That's a hard "no" right there. Okay, that's the — that's the — the woman with the cell phone who everyone picked out, "Why did she do this?" Like, "Oh my God, smile." Every — every time something happens, she picks up her phone and starts recording it. So, guess what she does in this event? She falls back on what she knows. Like, this is where the insane sh** starts to — starts to get get off the rails.

But, um, we — we — we covered a lot, and hopefully we brought up some — some points of interest for folks. I — I would — I would, you know, love for people to reach out to us, of course. For our Patreon subscribers, Patreon subscribers, you know, you can just hit us up on there. And, and, you know, we can go into detail. But, you know, we also have, you know, The Human Behavior Podcast at gmail.com. If you — you do want to send us something, actually too, I should mention, I should keep forgetting to mention this at the beginning, depending on what podcast player you have, it should say right on there in the description, "Send us a message," and you can click on it. It basically sends a one-way text to — to our podcast account. So, like, I can't respond to that text, but I can bring it up and talk about it. So, it's a good feedback loop. Like, if — if you have something or a point, you can throw it in there.

But, Brian, I think it's important that everybody knows that everybody that reaches out to Arcadia gets a personal answer from Brian. If you're reaching out to me, you're getting that. We address everything. We're not going to address ridiculous sh**, but the — the stuff that's realistic, heck yeah.

Paid — paid customers first, obviously. So, if you're one of our Patreon subscribers, we're going to get right on that. If — if not this week, no, no, no. So, we do — we appreciate everyone tuning in. And we — we — we appreciate your time. You know, if you enjoyed it, you know, we — we ask always to — to leave a review. But even more importantly, you know, share it with a friend. Tell us what you liked about it. Tell us what you're confused about so we can really get into the details of this stuff and get it out there. But we do appreciate everyone listening, and thank you so much for tuning in. And don't forget that training changes behavior.