Butler Township and Bethel Park didn’t share much in common before last weekend.
Now, the Western Pennsylvania communities separated by about 50 miles are inextricably linked by the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.
Butler Township, where a gunman wounded Trump, killed a spectator and critically injured two others July 13 at the Butler Farm Show grounds, is twice as large as Bethel Park by area but has half as many people.
Bethel Park, where the suspected gunman lived, is a densely populated suburb of about 33,000 people nestled in the South Hills less than 10 miles from Pittsburgh.
“It’s a shame that we’re going to be known for this thing throughout history,” said Janet Gonzales of Bethel Park.
‘This is a world event’
Gonzales, 66, has lived in Bethel Park for 16 years. She describes it as a quiet, safe community.
But since news broke that the suspected gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, lived in Bethel Park, the community has been anything but quiet.
Local and national news media have descended upon Milford Drive, where Crooks lived. Crooks, a 2022 Bethel Park High School graduate, was killed by Secret Service moments after he opened fire from the roof of a building near the Trump rally.
Now, the Bethel Park and Butler Township communities are left to grapple with the international news that unfolded in their backyards.
Gonzales said she’s still processing the weekend’s events.
“It’s been surprising and it’s been interesting,” Gonzales said. “I think this is a world event — not just United States, a world event.”
She said she’s talked with journalists from Germany and France, among other places.
“It’s crazy,” Gonzales said. “This is Bethel Park.”
Before the shooting, Bethel Park was exactly how it has been portrayed on the hit TV show “This Is Us,” Gonzales said. The six-season series, which aired from 2016 to 2022, follows the fictional Pearson family triplets from their upbringing in the borough into adulthood.
“That’s exactly how they portrayed it on that show. It was a nice neighborhood and everybody got along and it was a good place to live,” Gonzales said.
Gonzales said neighbors tend to stick to themselves in Bethel Park, but they always offer a friendly wave. Residents take care of their homes and volunteer with community organizations such as Meals on Wheels, she said.
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“It’s a lovely, lovely neighborhood,” she said.
The population is predominantly white and the median household income is more than $102,000, according to the most recent Census data. Pittsburgh Regional Transit’s 26-mile light-rail system, commonly known as the T, runs through Bethel Park, connecting the South Hills suburbs with the city’s North Shore.
In the 2020 presidential election, Trump won 16 of Bethel Park’s 28 voting precincts.
‘It’s only temporary’
Liam Campbell, 17, who will be a senior at Bethel Park High School in the fall, lives across the street from the Crooks family. The suspected gunman still lived with his parents.
“It’s a lot, because now everybody’s crowded around here,” Campbell said one day last week, looking out at the dozens of reporters camped out in his front yard, cameras fixated on the Crooks home. “There’s kids from my school showing up that want to just see what’s going on. … It’s a lot, and it’s stressful.”
Campbell, who has lived in Bethel Park since he entered sixth grade, said Crooks used to ride his bus. Campbell knew him as a quiet student.
“No one would have a bad word to say about (the Crooks family) because they just kept to themselves and didn’t like to talk to a lot of people,” Campbell said. “And I’m guessing the same with their son, because he was quiet.”
Mayor Jack Allen came to Bethel Park 38 years ago seeking a good school district for his children. He served on council for 16 years before running for mayor, a position he has held for more than a decade.
Allen boasts of the nearby light-rail system and the community’s multitude of recreation opportunities, including a splash park, pickleball courts and neighborhood playgrounds. Its parks play host to summer concerts and movie nights.
But Allen said he is most proud of the community’s resilience. When severe flooding washed out businesses and the foundations of residents’ homes in 2019, then-Gov. Tom Wolf gave Bethel Park an award for local government excellence in responding to adversity, Allen said.
“It’s just that this community has always bonded together in different situations,” Allen said.
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He believes community morale remains strong despite the shooting.
“People know that it’s a black eye,” he said, “but it’s only temporary.”
Butler’s reputation
Fifty miles north, Butler Township has been a getaway for Mike Cinker for nearly two decades.
In the wake of last weekend’s assassination attempt on the former president, he worries the area won’t be the same.
Cinker, who lives just over the border from Butler County in the North Hills, has returned to his campsite in Butler Township for the past 18 years. He is planning to sell the campsite soon.
“We love Butler,” he said. “It’s a nice community. It’s a lot smaller than where we are out in Wexford, Warrendale and Cranberry, that’s big. But this is a nice place. Very nice.”
Cinker wasn’t at the rally the night of the shooting but was watching on TV. He and his wife, who uses a wheelchair, had considered going. In hindsight, he’s glad she wasn’t there amid the chaos.
“I was shocked,” he said. “I thought, my God, Butler, Pa., is now going to be labeled for something like that that happened to Trump. It’s a shame.”
He hopes the shooting won’t have a long-lasting impact on the area’s reputation.
Butler County Tourism and Convention Bureau President Jack Cohen says the events of July 13 aren’t representative of the area.
“People from all over the county care about their neighbors, they truly do,” Cohen said. “It’s an amazing place to live, because of the way that it’s run, the way our politicians run it, and I will tell you, it’s without a question a great place to raise a family.”
In the wake of the rally, Cohen is confident people won’t be scared off from visiting or holding events in the Butler area.
“I had two phone calls yesterday (about) two events we have done in the past. Both of them want to come back,” he said. “Does that mean that because this terrible thing happened, that people won’t come? I don’t believe that for a minute.”
When people think about Butler County moving forward, they will always remember what happened, Cohen said.
“And they should. It’s history, and we should never repeat that history,” he said. “But it has nothing to do with this community at all, nothing. Everybody who comes here will tell you, ‘Wow, what a great place.’ I don’t believe for a moment that now they’re going to say, ‘Wow, Butler County’s probably a bad place, look what happened.’ This could have happened anywhere in the world.”
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‘Nobody believed it at first’
Rylee Werner, 18, and Mackenzie Gilliland, 20, both live close to the farm show site.
The pair considered going to the Trump rally but ended up sticking with plans to see a Luke Bryan concert in Ohio the night before.
On their way home from the show with friends, they started getting texts and calls. Not everyone thought the messages were serious at first.
“My mom actually called me, and she said, ‘Trump’s been shot,’ ” Gilliland said.
Her sister was at the rally and made it out OK. But hearing about the chaos was frightening.
“Nobody believed it at first,” Gilliland said. “It hit me — I was like, oh my god, my sister is there right now. That’s what really got me.”
After the shooting, traffic clogged the roads, Werner said, and made it more difficult for family members to get to work. There has also been an increased police presence.
“It’s crazy that it happened so close to us in our hometown,” Gilliland said. “We left and everything was normal. All of a sudden, you get back, and it’s like a tragedy happened in Butler. You would never think that anything bad would happen in Butler, Pa.”
Added Werner: “I didn’t think anything would happen here, ever. I feel like it’s just a small hometown.”
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