New questions emerged Wednesday about the extent of security around the warehouse in rural Pennsylvania where a young gunman climbed to the rooftop and fired shots at former U.S. President Donald Trump at a political rally last weekend, nearly assassinating him.
Local police alerted Trump’s Secret Service detail ahead of the rally early Saturday evening that they lacked the resources to position a patrol car outside the warehouse, local and federal law enforcement officials told The Washington Post.
The warehouse was just outside the interior security perimeter controlled by the Secret Service at the rally. But as the investigation continues, it is not clear why the Secret Service did not expand its own deployment of security agents if local police were not able to patrol the warehouse area, especially since there was a clear sight line to the rally stage from the warehouse rooftop.
Investigators are still trying to determine how the shooter, identified as Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was able to get to the rooftop unchecked and fire off as many as eight shots at the stage where Trump was speaking less than 150 meters away, grazing his right ear, killing one rallygoer and critically wounding two other spectators.
Insufficient manpower
The newspaper report quoted Richard Goldinger, the district attorney in Butler County, where the Trump rally took place, as saying the Secret Service “was informed that the local police department did not have manpower to assist with securing that building.” The Post said Goldinger’s account was confirmed by a Secret Service official who was briefed on the conversation.
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle earlier this week told ABC News that “there was local police in that building. There was local police in the area that were responsible for the outer perimeter of the building.”
But a local law enforcement official told The New York Times the officers were in an adjacent building. Goldinger told the newspaper that a local policeman shot at Crooks, apparently hitting him, although the Secret Service says that one of its snipers killed Crooks.
An assault weapon purchased legally by Crooks’ father in 2013 was found near his body on the rooftop.
Authorities are still trying to determine a motive for the assassination attempt, but so far they believe that Crooks acted alone. They are examining his electronic devices and interviewing dozens of witnesses at the rally and acquaintances of Crooks.
Cheatle was subpoenaed Wednesday to testify next week before a congressional committee about the security lapses at the rally.
The Secret Service — the key federal government security agency for current and former presidents and their families — controlled the inner perimeter closest to Trump, while leaving the outer perimeter, including the warehouse, to be monitored by local police. But it was unclear how that plan was not fully implemented.
Now, questions are being raised about whether the choice to leave the warehouse in the outer perimeter and in the hands of local police was the proper decision, since the rooftop was within shooting range of the rally stage.
Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas, whose agency includes the Secret Service, said earlier this week that an independent review of the assassination attempt from outside the government would start soon. He called the attack a security failure.
Video analyses of the attack scene by U.S. news media noted bystanders outside the immediate rally area and near the warehouse, yelling at police that there was a gunman on the warehouse rooftop nearly a minute and a half before shots were fired.
Cheatle told ABC News there was only “a very short period of time” between those reports and when the gunman fired.
“I don’t have all the details yet, but it was a very short period of time,” she said. “Seeking that person out, finding them, identifying them and eventually neutralizing them took place in a very short period of time, and it makes it very difficult.”
No plan to step down
Cheatle, who was appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022, said she took responsibility for the handling of security at the event.
“The buck stops with me,” she said. “I am the director of the Secret Service.”
She said she did not plan to resign.
The Secret Service has said that before Trump went onstage, local officers were searching for a “suspicious” man who had been flagged by passersby, and that the Secret Service was notified of that hunt. It is not clear, though, how much earlier that search went on or when the agency was notified of it.
After Cheatle’s interview, the Secret Service expressed support Tuesday for local law enforcement partners in providing security at the event despite the admitted failure to stop the attack.
“We are deeply grateful to the officers who ran toward danger to locate the gunman and to all our local partners for their unwavering commitment,” the Secret Service said in a statement. “Any news suggesting the Secret Service is blaming local law enforcement for Saturday's incident is simply not true."
Mayorkas said the probe of the assassination attempt would examine the actions of the Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies “before, during and after the shooting to identify the immediate and longer-term corrective actions required to ensure that the no-fail mission of protecting national leaders is most effectively met.”
Trump was not seriously injured in the attack but easily could have been killed. He has worn a bandage over his right ear at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this week, where his fellow Republicans have officially named him as the party’s presidential nominee for the November election.
