Fog of confusion clouds epic security failure at Donald Trump’s rally
Police found the young gunman on the roof just before shots were fired after apparent cascading security failures. Now the US congress wants answers.
Everyone agrees something went disastrously wrong at Donald Trump’s rally in western Pennsylvania last weekend, when a gunman was able to fire a shot that grazed the former president’s ear. But they don’t agree on what or why.
More than a half-dozen law enforcement agencies were responsible for securing the Butler Farm Show grounds and have since provided a patchwork of conflicting accounts of how Thomas Matthew Crooks could get on a rooftop with a clear line of sight to Trump.
Lawmakers hope to get a clearer understanding of one of the most stunning security breaches in decades this coming week, when they have summoned Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle and the heads of several local police agencies to Capitol Hill to explain their actions that day.
“We had details around the timeline, but it doesn’t give any clear answers as to what happened and why it was allowed,” Representative Gary Palmer (Republican, Alabama) said after federal authorities briefed lawmakers during the week.
“In a situation like this, the question that needs to be answered is, how did it happen?”
The 20-year-old Crooks fired at least six rounds from the roof of the American Glass Research building roughly 120m from where Mr Trump spoke, killing one spectator, critically injuring two others and leaving Mr Trump bloodied and defiant.
A Secret Service sniper team shot back, killing Crooks, whose motive remains a mystery.
Earlier on the day of the shooting, Crooks was able to fly a drone and get aerial footage of the event site, law-enforcement officials said, further underscoring the apparent cascading security failures.
Among the biggest questions unanswered by accounts to date: why the roof of the building from which Crooks took his shot wasn’t secured, and why – even though officers had flagged Crooks as suspicious an hour before Mr Trump spoke and had lost sight of him – the former president still went out to speak.
The Trump campaign publicly announced the rally at the farm show grounds on July 3. The following Monday, July 8, the Secret Service met with locals to start prepping. They held another meeting on July 11, where they did a walk-through.
On the day of the rally, local snipers and Secret Service counter-snipers also met in person to go over their operational plans with each other, a local law-enforcement official said.
The local officers wanted to make sure their federal counterparts knew where they would be stationed, the official said, so there would be no “blue-on-blue”, meaning the Secret Service wouldn’t mistake their snipers for intruders.
But both sides appeared to have differing impressions of where the Butler County Emergency Services Unit would be stationed at the building.
Some federal law-enforcement officials had been under the impression that local police officers were supposed to be stationed on the roof.
But the Butler County unit, a tactical team with officers from at least nine local departments, told the Secret Service it had no plans to be on the roof and would instead position members on the second floor to have eyes on the venue, the local law-enforcement official said.
The unit believed that the roof’s slant would have partially obscured their snipers’ view. Plus, the team didn’t want its snipers exposed to the heat, which rose above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) throughout their nine-hour shift.
The Secret Service told lawmakers it, too, decided not to stage snipers on the roof, and left securing that building to the locals.
Secret Service snipers positioned elsewhere would be able to see the roof from their elevated vantage point, the federal agency reasoned; it also opted not to fly its own drone overhead that day.
Those decisions enabled Crooks to climb to the roof by jumping on an air-conditioner and left officers inside the building as Crooks was just above them, taking aim at the former president.
“There was local police in that building,” Ms Cheatle acknowledged in an interview with ABC News, calling the shooting unacceptable.
He had attracted suspicion more than an hour before the attack, when officers saw him pacing around the edges of the rally with a backpack and a rangefinder.
He didn’t appear to have a weapon. The officers radioed their concerns to other agencies, including the Secret Service. One took a picture of Crooks and shared it around. But then, the police lost sight of him.
The local law-enforcement official said the Butler County Emergency Services Unit’s counterassault teams had been watching Crooks and knew he was acting suspiciously, but his behaviour didn’t meet the threshold for them to engage with Crooks.
Leaving their posts also would have created a hole in the unit’s security plan, the official said.
Several local officers broke free from their duties directing traffic to help look for the man but didn’t find him.
Despite the possible threat, the Secret Service allowed Mr Trump to take the stage. It couldn’t be determined whether agents sought to dissuade him.
When witnesses alerted police to a person on the roof, Butler Township officers checked out the building.
One of the officers was hoisted on top of another, and was pulling himself up to the roof when he found Crooks, who pointed a rifle at him. The officer, unable to engage the gunman, lost his grip and fell to the ground.
Reports of a gunman on the roof crackled over the police radio. Then, shots fired.
Kristina Peterson, Joel Schectman and Aruna Viswanatha contributed to this article.
The Wall Street Journal
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