Given the paucity of information that's come out about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13, I was surprised to see a headline in the New York Post saying that the shooter's father had "spoken out" in public for the first time since the incident. Though it's technically true that he was in public, I put the "spoken out" part in scare quotes because he really didn't do much speaking and it wasn't any sort of formal announcement. Some reporters have clearly been keeping tabs on Matthew Brian Crooks and they followed him to a grocery store on Monday. As he walked out carrying some groceries, the elder Crooks was approached and asked how everything was going and if he had anything to say about what his son had done. All he really said was that the family was trying to take care of themselves for now and he asked reporters to "give them some space." He added that he would be releasing a statement when the time was appropriate.

The father of would-be Donald Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks has revealed the family is just trying to “take care of ourselves” — as he stepped out in public for the first time since the shooting.

Matthew Brian Crooks, 53, made the remarks as he was spotted leaving a grocery store on Monday, Fox News reported.

“We just want to try to take care of ourselves right now. Please, just give us our space,” Crooks said as he loaded bag-loads of items into his car.

In a way, I can sort of feel some sympathy for Matthew Crooks and the remainder of his family. After all, he and his wife just lost their son who was only 20 years old. We can only imagine the type of grilling they've undergone with the FBI and the Secret Service over the past twelve days, not to mention the endless requests from the media. The guy was just out there trying to pick up some groceries and he was basically ambushed by reporters. 

There has yet to be any suggestion made over the course of the investigation that any other members of the Crooks family were involved in the shooting, the planning of it, or that they were even aware of what their son was doing that day. Yet, with that said, they are no doubt among those in the best position to fill in some of the backstory and help paint a more complete picture of how Thomas Crooks wound up on that roof on the fateful day and potentially even what his motives may have been. 

Also, at least a couple of Matthew Crooks' own actions raise questions that I've brought up here previously. Why did he phone in a missing person report on his son on the day of the shooting, along with reporting that one of his rifles was "missing?" When was the last time he saw his son prior to calling in that report? We now know that Thomas Crooks hid the rifle at the rally site in advance, so the firearm had to have been missing since at least Friday of that week. But he regularly went to a local firing range. Was it really so unusual for him to take off like that, or at least unusual enough to bother the police with a missing persons report? Perhaps we'll get those answers in the weeks or months to come.

The other notable item to pop up recently is the release of some security personnel body camera footage taken from the infamous "sloped roof" shortly after Crooks was killed by snipers. You can watch the video at the link, but I won't embed it here today. You can see Crooks' body on the roof and hear the agents discussing how "this is the guy" they had spotted on video and had suspicions about. There don't seem to be any new bombshells revealed in their brief conversation, but it at least provides a closer look at the scene of the crime.