- author, Bernd Debsmann Jr.
- role, Pennsylvania
Questions are swirling about why police officers and agents providing security for President Donald Trump’s rally allowed a gunman to get so close.
Suspect Thomas Matthew Crooks shot Trump from 130 metres (430 feet) away on the roof of a building near an outdoor event at the Butler County Fairgrounds in Pennsylvania.
The U.S. Secret Service later said it had deployed local police to guard the building.
One person was killed and two seriously injured in the crowd, including Trump, who suffered an ear injury.
Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the agency relies on local police for assistance.
He said his agents were in charge of security around the venue, while local police secured the area outside the venue, including the private building used by the shooter.
The local sheriff’s office referred the BBC’s questions to state police, who said they were not responsible for the area the building was located in.
A spokesman told the BBC that the Secret Service had provided “all the resources” it requested, with between 30 and 40 officers stationed inside the perimeter.
Many observers have questioned how the security plan could have gone awry, allowing the gunman unhindered access to Trump.
Members of the crowd said they spotted the suspect on the roof minutes before the shooting began, while Butler County Sheriff Michael Throop said local patrol officers also spotted the suspect but were unable to stop him.
The sheriff acknowledged there were “failures” in securing the building but said he didn’t believe any one party was to blame.
Image source, Getty Images
It’s common for the Secret Service to enlist local police to provide security for rallies, said Jason Russell, founder of Secure Environment Consultants, who worked as an agent for the agency from 2002 to 2010, including during the presidential campaign.
“The secret service doesn’t have unlimited resources in terms of agents they can deploy everywhere,” he told the BBC.
He said investigators typically visit campaign venues a few days in advance to develop security plans and share them with local police agencies.
He said in this case the building where the shooter was located was outside the official venue of the incident, so local police were responsible.
He said communications were shared with all involved agencies during the incident, but added that it “takes 10 seconds” for information to travel back and forth, which could have been enough time for a gunman to fire several shots.
NBC News reported, citing two sources familiar with Secret Service operations, that the roof was known to be a vulnerable area before the incident.
Russell said it’s likely Secret Service agents perceived the building as a threat up ahead and asked local authorities to post officers nearby to block the approach.
“For some reason, that didn’t happen,” he said.
“There was a need for tighter security against a long-distance threat,” said one witness, Thomas Gleason, who served 21 years as a paratrooper and ranger in the U.S. Army.
“From a distance and perspective, if someone were to try to assassinate me, [Trump] That would have been the most logical shooting point,” he said.
The FBI has since taken over the role of lead investigator on the case, and the shooting is now the subject of several investigations by both the House and Senate.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas called it a “national security failure” and told CNN that “this must never happen again.”
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle said Monday that the agency is working with federal and local police to determine “what happened, how it happened, and how we can prevent this from happening again.”
She added that she would cooperate with any congressional investigations into the shooting.
Cheatle is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on July 22. Republicans on the committee are also asking the Secret Service to turn over evidence, including internal communications, audio and video recordings, messages to local police, maps, diagrams and pre-event assessments.
