US Secret Service did not have agents in local police command center when Trump was shot

The U.S. Secret Service had no agents stationed in the local police command center when urgent radio dispatches warned of a man with a gun on the roof 130 yards from where former President Donald J. Trump was speaking in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, the acting Secret Service director said Aug. 2.

"It was so apparent to me that in this incident, in the final 30 seconds, which has been the focus of what happened before the assailant opened fire, there was clearly radio transmissions that may have happened on that local radio net that we did not have," Ronald L. Rowe Jr. said during a Washington, D.C., press briefing.

"And so we have to do a better job of co-locating, leveraging that counterpart system, and this is going to drive our operations going forward," Rowe said.

The admission appears to answer the urgent question asked by members of Congress and security analysts over the past several weeks: If local police knew about a man with a gun, why didn't Secret Service snipers know?

'We can easily see somebody running around at the ridge of the roof. Why didn’t Secret Service snipers see him?'

Officials have cited "siloed" radio communications as a factor in the Secret Service not being up to speed on intelligence gathered by local police. Rowe said a Pennsylvania State Police official was in the Secret Service security room on July 13 but that no Secret Service officials were in the local police command center.

"If a state or local [agency] sets up a unified command post, maybe we need to be in that room as well, as opposed to just being in another room and rely on that counterpart system," Rowe said.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) earlier disclosed that radios provided by local law enforcement to the Secret Service for cross-agency communication were never used on July 13.

Rowe said the counter-sniper teams at the Butler event communicated via text messages on cell phones — not by radio.

Acting Secret Service Director Ronald L. Rowe Jr. testifies at a joint hearing of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee July 30 in Washington, D.C.Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

"With respect to the counter-snipers, they were using cellular text communications," Rowe said. "At this point moving forward, what I've directed now is that everybody should be using the radio net."

Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, shot Trump in the right ear with an AR-15-style rifle just after 6:11 p.m.

Crooks got off seven more shots before a law enforcement counter-sniper killed him with a bullet that one expert told Blaze News was fired from 448 yards away.

'You could see him sit up and sling his weapon around and aim it right towards us right before the Secret Service shot him.'

Crooks stopped firing after eight shots when a Butler County tactical officer shot at him from ground level behind the bleachers at the fairgrounds, the Washington Post reported. There was a 10-second lull after Crooks' eighth shot — fired almost simultaneously with the Butler SWAT officer's shot. Crooks then tried to reposition himself on the roof. He did not fire again and was killed by a counter-sniper's bullet a few seconds later.

Video captured by witness Jon Malis from just west of Building 6 showed Crooks turn and look down at the crowd that was frantically trying to warn police.

"All I saw was his face kind of turn and look toward us," Malis told News Nation. "The gentleman in front of me, he had his camera zoomed in. I think he was taking photographs, and he said, 'Hey, he's got a gun, and he's aiming it at us,' something like that.

"Then when I looked back later with my video zoomed in," Malis said, "sure enough, you could see him sit up and sling his weapon around and aim it right towards us right before the Secret Service shot him."

Only a perfectly timed turn of his head to look at a giant immigration chart on a video screen saved Trump from a gruesome death. Trump's former presidential physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, said if the bullet had struck even one-quarter of an inch closer, Trump would be dead. Jackson has examined Trump at least twice since the shooting.

Rowe disclosed that Trump did not have Secret Service counter-sniper protection at any 2024 events prior to the Butler rally.

“It was the first time the Secret Service counter-snipers were deployed to support the former president's detail,” Rowe said. The Trump campaign instead received “state and local resources” at prior campaign stops and other events.

At the press event, Rowe repeated his contention that Secret Service agents and counter-snipers had no idea Crooks was on the roof with a rifle until he fired a burst of eight shots at Trump and the crowd at 6:11:33 p.m.

The federal agency responsible for Trump’s safety did not know that local police had surrounded the American Glass Research Building 6 about two minutes earlier or that bystanders west of the building spotted a man with a rifle belly-crawling up the roof.

A law enforcement officer who hoisted himself up to peer above the roof line at 6:11 p.m. saw Crooks aim the rifle at him. That officer fell to the ground, then broadcast on police radio that there was a man with a gun lying in a prone position on the roof. This was 30 seconds before Crooks fired, according to a timeline developed by Johnson's office.

“Based on what I know right now, neither the Secret Service counter-sniper teams nor members of the former president's security detail had any knowledge that there was a man on the roof of the AGR building with a firearm,” Rowe said. “It is my understanding that personnel were not aware the assailant had a firearm until they heard gunshots.”

Rowe’s remarks served to highlight the growing gap between what local law enforcement officials knew in the crucial two minutes before the shooting and what the Secret Service somehow didn’t know.

SLUGFEST: Trump vs. ABC Journalist at NAJB Conference | Sen. Ron Johnson | 7/31/2024www.youtube.com

Rowe’s explanation also came against the backdrop of new video captured by shooting victim James Copenhaver from behind Trump’s podium, showing Crooks running across the roof line in the distance. He dropped to one knee and then into a prone shooting position, the video showed.

“We can easily see somebody running around at the ridge of the roof, and that’s Crooks,” Johnson said on "Blaze News Tonight." “So the crowd saw him. Why didn’t Secret Service snipers see him?”

Rowe backed away from his suggestion made at a July 30 U.S. Senate hearing that local law enforcement officials were at fault for not securing all of the line-of-sight rooftops at the Butler event.

“The Secret Service takes full responsibility for the tragic events of July 13,” Rowe said. “This was a mission failure. The sole responsibility of our agency is to make sure our protectees are never put in danger. We fell short of that in Butler. And I'm working to make sure that this failure does not happen again.”

'That building was very close to that outer perimeter, and we should have had more of a presence.'

Rowe’s comments are unlikely to assuage the growing concerns and angst in Congress that the Secret Service's historic blunders in Butler came within a quarter-inch of the assassination of the former president and leading 2024 presidential candidate.

Local police first classified Crooks as a suspicious person between 4:20 p.m. and 4:26 p.m., when a Beaver County officer finishing his shift saw Crooks sitting at a nearby picnic table and sent a text to his colleagues.

A local police sniper took photos of would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks at a retaining wall near the building he used as a perch to shoot former President Donald J. Trump on July 13. Photos via US Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)

"Someone followed our lead and snuck in and parked by our cars just so you know," the officer texted at 4:27 p.m., according to records released by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). "I'm just letting you know because you see me go out with my rifle and put it in my car so he knows you guys are up there he's sitting to the direct right on a picnic table about 50 yards from the exit."

A counter-sniper positioned in the building behind the one used by Crooks as a shooting perch took two photos of Crooks "lurking around" at 5:14 p.m., according to a timeline released by Johnson's office. A photo of a bicycle Crooks was seen riding onto the grounds was taken at 5:28 p.m. The photos were texted to local counter-snipers at 5:38 p.m. and forwarded to the command center at 5:45 p.m.

"So that was 26 minutes before the first shots were fired," Johnson said. "Again, that photo was taken at 5:14, almost an hour before the first shots were fired.

"So what happened in that 26 minutes from when the sniper received the photo and his location? What were they doing? Why weren’t they continuously scanning the AGR building?”

The security plan for the Butler Farm Show grounds where former President Donald J. Trump was shot July 13. Would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks fired from the roof shown at upper right.Beaver County Emergency Services Unit SWAT

According to the site security plan, snipers from Butler and Beaver Counties were stationed in the two-story building just north of Building 6 where Crooks fired from. A Washington County counter-sniper was posted southwest of the event stage, hundreds of yards from Building 6.

Rowe said there should have been "better coverage" of the roofs in the AGR campus north of the fairgrounds.

"For the protectee, we should have had better coverage on that roof line," he said. "We should have had at least some other set of eyes from the Secret Service point of view covering that. That building was very close to that outer perimeter, and we should have had more of a presence."

Local law enforcement that supported the Butler event included the Butler County Emergency Services Unit, the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit, the Butler Township Police Department, the Allegheny County Bomb Squad, the Washington County SWAT team, and Pennsylvania State Police.

The Butler site was an even bigger security risk than previously disclosed, according to U.S. Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), who served with the 82nd Airborne in Iraq and worked as a counter-sniper for the U.S. State Department.

“I laid personally where Thomas Crooks took the shot, and I can tell you from that building you have a vantage point where you can see the shooter at all times," Mills said on Fox News. "We went down to the exact location where President Trump was standing during the incident, and I can tell you, the Kubota manufacturing center about 420-plus yards outside of the perimeter zone was a direct 12 o’clock shot on the president.

"Not to mention that there was an entire slew of buildings that was on the opposite side of the stage that also could have snipers from that position," said Mills, who described the Butler event as the "biggest Secret Service and security breach and failure that we have seen in our lifetimes."

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