No, this isn’t a photo of Thomas Matthew Crooks in a Jewish skullcap

An image of someone wearing a Jewish kippah, or skullcap, has been mischaracterized online as showing Thomas Matthew Crooks, the shooter at former President Donald Trump’s July 13 campaign rally in Pennsylvania.  

"For the record," reads text over the image in a recent Threads post, "Thomas Matthew Crooks wearing a quipá."

A kippah, also called a yarmulke, is a head covering often worn by Jewish men in synagogue. Some Jews also wear a kippah outside of synagogue, and sometimes women not in orthodox synagogues wear them, too. 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

(Screengrab from Threads)

Other social media posts said the photo showed Crooks "at the Jewish Synagogue Congregation B’nai Abraham" in Butler, Pennsylvania. The synagogue didn’t immediately return PolitiFact’s message asking about the claims. 

But Lead Stories and Australian Associated Press FactCheck reported July 19 that the synagogue said in a statement that although the photo was taken from its Facebook page, the person in it isn’t Crooks. 

Featured Fact-check

Facebook posts

stated on August 30, 2024 in a post

"Samsung drops out of $1 billion advertising campaign with Olympics."

"Thomas Crooks has never been a member of Congregation B’nai Abraham, nor has he ever attended any event or service at our synagogue," the statement said. 

The synagogue posted the photo Feb. 13 on Facebook. 

Claims that Crooks was Jewish appear to be unfounded; we don’t know whether he was religious. 

We looked for but could find no credible sources, such as police reports, public statements or news coverage that said Crooks was Jewish.

We rate claims this photo shows Crooks False.

PolitiFact Senior Correspondent Amy Sherman contributed to this fact-check.