For nearly 24 hours, a family living across the street from where Thomas Matthew Crooks resided were banned from entering their own home, not even to grab essential medications or their IDs.
They had been evacuated, they said, after the police found a "device" at Crooks' home, not told when they'd be able to return or given any assistance with finding a place to stay for the night.
Crooks, 20, allegedly shot former President Donald Trump during a rally on Saturday in Butler, Pennsylvania , about 40 miles north of his home in Bethel Park, wounding the businessman, killing one and critically injuring two others before a Secret Service sniper took him out.
READ MORE: EXCLUSIVE: Tears and flags at half-mast - Inside community grieving ahead of funeral for dad shot at Trump rally
READ MORE: Trump shooter Thomas Crooks seen at rally with rangefinder just three hours before he opened fire
"It was me and my aunt and the dog. I was in my room, and I heard knocking on the door, so I came out and saw my aunt talking to the state police, and they were telling us that anyone in the house needed to evacuate because there was a device in the neighboring house that needed to be removed," Liam Campbell told TheMirror.com.
"We were uprooted from our home with no notice at 11 o'clock at night and not allowed to come back for 24 hours, and nobody would give us any information," his mother, Kelly Little, told TheMirror.com. She said she and her son were "exhausted."
Campbell, a 17-year-old student at Bethel Park High School, where Crooks attended who's slated to be a senior in the fall, said he was "surprised" and "shocked" when the cops came and kicked them out.
Click here to follow the Mirror US on Google News to stay up to date with all the latest news, sports and entertainment stories.
"I didn’t know what was going on at first, and then them saying a device needs to be removed from a neighboring house sounds like there’s a bomb in the house," he said. "I was scared. I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know what could happen. It was a lot. It was scary."
"They said that it didn’t matter where we went — we just needed to get out of the area, and if we didn’t have a place to stay, then it wasn’t their problem," he added. "I went to my friend’s house, and my aunt went to my uncle’s house."
Little, 38, ended up traveling back and forth between her brother's home and her sister-in-law's with the family dog, Oreo, who she said is "best friends" with her sister-in-law's dog.
The "device" the police found may have been explosives or an explosive detonator like the ones found inside the 20-year-old shooter's car by FBI agents. It wasn't clear what type of explosives they were or what the detonator was like.
There have been no reports yet about what the police may have found inside the home, but the Bethel Park Police Department confirmed to reporters earlier in the week that an investigation into explosives was underway at the home.
Both Campbell and Little said no one was given any sort of time frame of when they could return nor any additional information about the investigation — though a sergeant from the Bethel Park Police Department took down their names and phone numbers and said they'd call when the family could return. That wouldn't be for another 23 hours.
"They were kind of pissy with us when we would ask like, ‘Hey, when can I come home?’" Little, 38, said. Every two hours, she'd drive back and ask them when they could return.
"You’d come back, and they’d were like, ‘You can’t go down there.’ And you’d be like, ‘Well, any idea when?’ ‘Nope, we don’t know anything.’ And I’m like, ‘You have to tell me — there has to be something you can tell me. You can’t just tell me, “Get out of your house. We don’t know when you can come back.” That’s absurd. I need my medication. I need to get a change of clothes.’ And he said, ‘We’re not going to let you do that," Little detailed. "It was frustrating. It was exhausting, too."
"I couldn’t get my wallet. My ID was inside. I said, ‘What if I needed a hotel room? I can’t get one.’ ‘That’s not our problem,'" she said they told her. She added that it was "a lot of frustration with the government processes."
"I went to the police station and said, ‘Can I go get my medication? If I don’t take my Adderall, I’m going to start being an a------ to all of you people.’ And like, my inhaler I have to take every day. If I start missing that, then I end up in the hospital with an asthma attack," she said.
"So, this guy — it’s 5:30 in the morning on Sunday morning when I’m there, and this cop goes, ‘Well, why don’t you call your PCP?’ And I’m like, ‘At f------ 5:30 on a Sunday morning? Who’s gonna call their PCP at that time? And, I just filled my prescription. My insurance is not going to pay for that,'" she continued. "And he said, ‘Just go to the ER.’ I said, ‘That’s great advice from a first responder. Wait until it gets so bad you have to go to the emergency room. Thank you. That’s f------ helpful.'"
TheMirror.com contacted the Bethel Park Police Department and the FBI's Pittsburgh field office for comment about the cops' and feds' alleged behavior toward Bethel Park residents amid the evacuation order but did not immediately hear back.
When Little returned to her property once again shortly thereafter, she said she saw around 30 law enforcement officers standing between Crooks' house and hers "that were clearly not actively doing anything" as they played on their phones.
So, Little went back to her sister-in-law's and waited it out, she said. At one point, she said she snuck into her home to grab the essentials and that she doesn't think the police "had any idea" she was there.
Campbell said he stayed at his friend's house the entire day, leaving only at around 10 p.m. on Sunday to check out what was happening at the scene and to see if he and his family could return.
"A Bethel Park police officer saw us and told us that we weren’t allowed to be here because there’s an active scene going on. I told him, ‘I live on the corner and was wondering when we were going to be allowed back,’ and he told us that he didn’t know and that we needed to leave," Campbell said.
Another cop then recognized the teen as he and his friends walked back up the street, he said, and he approached Campbell and asked him if he lived on the street. Campbell said he did, and he said the cop told him that his parents should have been called, as everyone was allowed back.
"I called [my mom] immediately and told her," he said. The family moved back in that night. Then, the next morning, they woke up to a media frenzy in their front and side yards.
"There were probably 40 photographers in the side yard earlier," she said during her and Campbell's conversation with TheMirror.com on Monday evening. "There were a bunch of reporters over here, cops everywhere. The FBI was here. And there was a lot of people that don't live in this neighborhood that have been coming by to try to be nosy, so that's annoying in and of itself."
Campbell added that the extra attention the normally "quiet" community got was "a lot" to deal with. "I woke up this morning, looked out the window and saw people, like reporters with lawn chairs, in our front yard. I was confused and had no idea what was going on. And then, an hour later, I was being interviewed."
It wasn't until late that afternoon that Little said she felt that things were "finally back to normal" — most of the police had left, and only about half a dozen reporters lingered on the block, speaking to neighbors or trying to catch a glimpse of Crooks' elusive parents.
Most Popular
Comments / 0