Details are beginning to emerge about the mental state of Donald Trump’s would-be assassin after the FBI gained access to his cellphone this week.
Although no specific motive has been established, Thomas Crooks’ internet history revealed that he searched for information about “major depressive disorder” in the days leading up to the July 13 attack.
Psychologists say the condition, a clinical term to describe depression that lasts a long time and affects daily life, is typically characterized by self-hatred.
But it can also turn outward. Depressed people are about three times more likely to commit a violent crime, some research shows. quarter 50% of mass shooting perpetrators in the United States suffer from clinical depression or other non-psychotic mental illnesses.
The possibility that Crooks may have been depressed and taking antidepressants has reignited a debate in the medical world: Do those drugs, in fact, play a role in creating homicidal tendencies?
Thomas Matthew Crooks shot former President Trump as he spoke at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. Experts are still trying to determine his motive.
Authorities don’t know why Crooks targeted Trump, and the shooter’s political views appear unclear.
He was a registered Republican and had been described by classmates as a staunch conservative, but in 2021 he donated money to a progressive movement.
Still, even without a motive, doctors have said Crooks fits the standard model of a mass shooter.
He was believed to feel disenfranchised and invisible and sought a kind of immortality through his violent actions.
California psychologist Dr Craig Hands told DailyMail.com that while antidepressants may be linked to homicidal behaviour, major depression is the likely culprit.
An FBI review of Crooks’ phones and computer found that he had Googled “major depressive disorder.”
However, it was not clear whether he had been diagnosed with the disease, which affects around 17 million adults in the United States.
Dr Craig Hands, a clinical psychologist in California, told DailyMail.com: “In the case of the shooter, I can only assume, in many ways, from what I’ve heard, that he fits a common profile.
-In fact, it may be likely, I don’t know if he was depressed, but that could have contributed to his actions.
‘This depression creates isolation… it’s like a kind of burning depression that is associated with internal rage against oneself and against the machine, so to speak. Rage against the world.’
Major depressive disorder is a clinical diagnosis that causes a persistent feeling of deep sadness, hopelessness, loss of interest in activities, low energy, poor or increased appetite, changes in concentration, suicidal thoughts and behavior.
Dr Hands added: ‘Typically, depression consists of self-criticism and anger, self-hatred.
‘I have to underline the term hate, self-hatred, but many times, or occasionally, that hate is projected outwards.’
A 2015 Oxford University study of about 47,000 people in Sweden, both with and without depression, found that those with depression were approximately three times more are more likely than the general population to commit a violent crime, such as homicide, aggravated assault, or robbery.
Crooks’ phone showed that in the weeks leading up to his attack on Trump, the loner had researched Ethan Crumbley, who shot and killed four classmates at a Michigan high school in 2021.
The criminals also searched Crumbley’s parents, who were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter – the first time the parents of a school shooter have been prosecuted.
Law enforcement said Crooks had photos of Biden and Trump on his phone and had looked up when and where the Democratic Convention was being held.
Thomas Crooks’ internet history revealed he searched for information about “major depressive disorder” in the days leading up to the July 13 attack (stock)
Dr Rachel Toles, a licensed clinical psychologist based in California who specialises in the study of violent criminals, told DailyMail.com that Crooks may have been seeking to kill the “most visible” people on the planet to make up for the fact that he felt invisible his entire life.
However, an old theory about mass shooters has resurfaced following new details about Crooks’ phone history.
Professor Peter Gøtzsche, a medical researcher and co-founder of the famous Cochrane Collaboration, an evidence-based research institution in the UK, raised the idea that medication might have played a role.
He saying that it is “very possible that he was taking an anti-depression medication, which we know increases the risk of homicide.”
The controversial idea is not entirely unheard of. A study by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, a nonprofit watchdog group based in Pennsylvania, He drew a link between antidepressants and violent behavior.
Researchers collected more than 780,000 reports of adverse events related to 484 drugs, of which 1,937 involved violence, including acts such as homicide or physical assault.
They identified 31 medications (6 percent of the total) that were disproportionately linked to violent events. These included 11 antidepressants such as Prozac, some ADHD medications and some sedatives.
Paxil was associated with a 10-fold increased likelihood of causing aggression, while the rest were about eight times more likely.
An independent study published in PLoS Medicine found that young people taking antidepressants like Prozac are more likely to commit violent crimes, with a 43 percent increase in risk between ages 15 and 24.
Meanwhile, a 2015 Swedish cohort study found a link between SSRIs and convictions for violent crimes, but the results varied by age group.
A 2016 review of more than 70 trials found increased aggression and self-harm in children and adolescents taking SSRIs, but not in adults.
Still, other studies have found that antidepressants may have anti-aggression effects, and it is difficult to separate whether depression itself causes violence.
Common antidepressants increase the amount of available neurotransmitters that improve mood and regulate emotions in the brain.
SSRIs specifically increase serotonin levels in the brain by inhibiting the reuptake (absorption) of serotonin into brain cells. This makes more serotonin available to improve message transmission between neurons.
Serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, on the other hand, increase the levels of serotonin and norepinephrine in the brain. They inhibit the reuptake of these two neurotransmitters, making them more available to improve communication between neurons.
By increasing the levels of these neurotransmitters, anxiety is reduced, mood is improved, and overall emotional well-being is enhanced.
The 20-year-old was shot by US Secret Service snipers moments after opening fire on Trump, but questions remain about how he was not detected sooner.
Law enforcement personnel stand over Crooks’ body on the rooftop of America Glass Research, located just a couple hundred yards from where Trump spoke on Saturday.
Age seems to play a role.
At age 20, Crooks’ brain was not fully developed and would not have been until around age 25.
Some research, including by Dr. Amir Raz, a professor of clinical neuroscience in the department of psychiatry at McGill University, suggests that manipulating serotonin in children’s brains is a risky idea.
He said American scientist in 2007: ‘The human brain develops exponentially when we are very young.
‘And exposure to antidepressants can affect or influence the wiring of the brain, especially when it comes to certain elements that have to do with stress, emotion and the regulation of these.’
However, not all doctors are convinced. In response to Dr. Gøtzsche’s message about X, Dr. Benjamin Martin Janaway, a psychiatrist in the United Kingdom, said: “Antidepressants are chemical modulators. They cannot plan and execute a murder attempt.”
Dr. Hands noted that each person deals with depression differently and that there is a “subpopulation of people who may respond to antidepressants with suicidal ideation, thoughts or actions.”
‘However, such situations must be considered within the context of the contact or the matrix of the person’s life.’
For example, Crooks was reported to have a good relationship with his family but did not spend much time with them, suggesting conflict at home, Dr Hands suggested.
A former classmate also said he had been bullied by other classmates. He was teased for the way he dressed, and the former classmate noted that he was a “loner” and often seemed “socially reserved.”
Many violent crime perpetrators who suffer from depression feel invisible, unnoticed by others, and often viewed as bad, “weird,” or dangerous.
The motive is usually to reveal themselves to the world and gain the attention they feel they have been deprived of. They want to seek a form of revenge against the world that has mischaracterized them and, in their view, hates them.
Dr. Hands said: ‘Hate can build up and be externalized. Two things happen: not only can they act out against the world that has not seen them, that has mischaracterized them, and from their point of view, that hates them, they can punish them.
“They can kill their aggressor, they can be seen, and then they can act out their own self-destructive tendencies and destroy themselves in one fell swoop. That aggression and self-hatred is absolutely central to acts of violence toward others.”