What if Thomas Matthew Crooks Had Been a Black Man?

Can you imagine what would have happened to a Black man who showed up at a Donald Trump rally acting “suspiciously” around the metal detectors?

It is no secret to any conscious American why Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old shooter of former President Trump was not stopped although police and security deemed him to be acting “suspiciously” around the metal detectors at the entrance of the July 13 Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

There is a reason that Crooks was reportedly not interrogated for identification. He was not chased, not followed; not heavily surveilled as he climbed to the roof of a building and aimed an AR-15 style rifle only about 130 yards away from where former President Trump was speaking.

It is evident by only a brief review of recent American history that the reason Crooks was not stopped at the gate and caught before he pulled the trigger was because he was White. Period. Once again, it was the lone White male syndrome.

There is no question that had Crooks been a Black man, he would have been commanded to show identification. Had he not concurred, he would have been wrestled to the ground and likely shot dead or choked to death like D’Vontaye Mitchell, who was killed by hotel security June 30 right there in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where the Republican National Convention is being held this week.

Unlike Trayvon Martin, 17, out for Skittles and iced tea in Florida; Tamir Rice, 12, with a toy gun in Ohio; or Airforce Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, in his own apartment in Georgia, among dozens of other household names, Crooks was somehow given the benefit of the doubt, allowed to slide on by.

It ultimately ended with Crooks shooting and wounding former President Donald Trump in an assassination attempt, killing firefighter husband and father Cory Compechello and critically injuring two other people before he was killed by a police sniper.

As authorities now intensely investigate, the debacle has been described as an “epic failure” of security, mainly the Secret Service. But we all know what it really was. The failure of security was catastrophic because Crooks was White.

President Joe Biden quickly took authority, met with Homeland Security, the FBI and Secret Service, he promised the nation a thorough investigation.

But, Americans have witnessed this all too familiar scenario many times before. For example, when thousands of predominantly White Confederate flag-waving Trump supporters headed for Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021, none of the federal law enforcement agencies responded by being prepared with the appropriate level of force, resulting in the violent January 6 attack and insurrection.

Clearly, had those rioters been Black, the Capitol Police and other security agencies would have been prepared in advance with military force, dogs and high-powered rifles. They were unprepared for the destruction that occurred that day for the same reason that they were unprepared for the attack on former President Donald Trump’s life in Butler, Pennsylvania. They have yet to become fully sensitized to the danger of the lone White male syndrome. The spirits of racism and White supremacy in America have trained authorities that the Black man should be treated as a threat and the White man should be given a pass.

Fortunately, the would-be Trump assassin did not succeed although a family man took the bullet and died. Donald Trump, shot across the top of his right ear, escaped serious injury and was given a hero’s welcome at the Republican National Convention this week. In an iconic photo seen around the world, he pumped his fist seconds after the shooting, shouting to the crowd, “fight, fight, fight!”

But fight for what?

Ironically, it has been Donald Trump himself who has been a ringleader in fanning the fumes of racism and White supremacy in America.

* He implied that the Central Park Five, Black and Latino men who were ultimately exonerated of rape after a wrongful conviction, deserved the death penalty. Trump has never apologized.

* He led the birther movement claiming President Barack Obama was not born in the U. S.

* He called Haiti and African nations “sh*thole countries.”

* He called football players protesting wrongful police killings of Black men and women “sons of bitches.”

* During the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally that drew White supremacists from across the country in 2017, Trump said there were “very fine people on both sides.”

* And most recently, during the CNN debate against President Biden, he referred to “Black jobs”, apparently espousing a stereotype that he has yet to explain.

Thankfully, Donald Trump survived the assassination attempt. But the fact is that the so far unrepentant former president was nearly killed by the same evil that he has helped to perpetuate.

Hazel Trice Edney is editor-in-chief of the Trice Edney News Wire.