The Secret Service failed to protect Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. The former president barely escaped a fatal headshot from the rifle of Thomas Matthew Crooks, who was able to perch on the rooftop of the American Glass Research building less than 200 yards from the rally stage. How Crooks perched on this unprotected structure remains a source of scrutiny and embarrassment for the agency. We still don’t have any answers regarding how many shots were fired, whether Crooks acted alone, or what the motive was. The agency has decided to become the whipping boy for the catastrophic event, admitting it was a total failure.
There were two disturbing revelations during Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe’s presser last Friday: the counter-sniper teams didn’t know Crooks was armed until he opened fire, and the agency didn’t have access to the radio system which local law enforcement blared warnings about Crooks, even describing him. Leaked text messages showed that law enforcement was aware of Crooks almost 100 minutes before he attacked the former president. It showed how a 20-year-old PA native was ahead of the $3.6 billion agency tasked with protecting the former president. The Washington Post did a deeper dive into that communications breakdown:
An urgent message crackled over the radio inside the white trailer, a mobile communications hub for local police helping to secure former president Donald Trump’s July 13 rally in Butler, Pa.
“Just an FYI, we had a younger white male, long hair, lurking around the AGR building,” a local countersniper said at 5:42 p.m., according to a time-stamped transcript of encrypted radio communications obtained by The Washington Post. “He was viewed with a range finder sighting the stage. … We lost sight of him.”
No one from the Secret Service, the agency primarily responsible for protecting Trump, was inside that white trailer to hear the message, according to two law enforcement officials. Instead, the federal agency had its own mobile command post with Pennsylvania State Police almost 300 yards away — and had no direct, open communication line to the local police hub. The local commander inside the trailer had to pick up his cellphone and dial a state trooper to relay the message, the two officials said.
[…]
The radio transmission about the suspicious male with a range finder set off a flurry of messages between local officers on the ground and supervisors stationed in the Butler County command center trailer.
“Do you know what color shirt?” one sheriff’s deputy asked.
“White shirt with a hat,” another answered.
In a separate channel for local tactical officers — not audible on the channel used by sheriff’s deputies — the countersniper who first reported the range finder was giving a different description: “Gray T-shirt, light-colored khaki shorts.”
The local officers lost track of Crooks, and would not see him again for 20 minutes, the transcript shows.
Monitoring the three encrypted communication channels inside the trailer, located next to a lakeside warehouse to the south of the rally site, was Sgt. Ed Lenz, the tactical commander for the Butler County mobile unit, according to the law enforcement official familiar with the police response.
He was joined by a deputy commander in the Butler County Emergency Services Unit, a Butler County sheriff’s sergeant and a county employee, the official said.
Lenz did not respond to an email with detailed questions.
[…]
Inside the local command, Lenz radioed to clarify that the person on the roof was not a police officer.
“We do not have assets on the roof,” he said. “That is not us.”
At 6:09, Lenz again dialed the state trooper to inform him about the suspect on the roof, according to the law enforcement official and call logs.
At the same time, a local officer said over the radio that he had a good view of the male on the roof.
[…]
At 6:11 p.m., a local officer hoisted up to the roofline by a colleague reported the first sign that the man on the roof was, in fact, a deadly threat.
“He’s armed,” the officer said, according to the transcript. “I saw him, he’s laying down.”
Local officials have previously said the officer lowered himself because his hands were on the roofline, preventing him from pulling his weapon as Crooks pointed his rifle in the officer’s direction.
“He’s got a long gun,” the officer said again into the radio.
Seconds later, Lenz radioed the Butler County quick response force, a team responsible for responding to any potential coordinated attack on Trump. The team was based in the barns behind the rally stage, documents show, but had moved out into a field and were facing the Agr building, according to video footage recorded two minutes earlier.
It's a nice follow-up to the New York Times piece on the text messages. It also shows the demarcated communications system left Trump vulnerable to attack, that the refusal to secure the AGR building left the former president in mortal danger, and that Crooks was ahead of everyone when he shouldn’t have; it was preventable. You saw that in the piece where police were looking for Crooks on the ground when he already scaled the HVAC system to gain access to the roof of the AGR building. Then, spectators shouted that Crooks was armed and on the roof.
More answers are required regarding this embarrassing failure on behalf of the Secret Service. In less than a month, the agency and its top officials have done well in making an argument for its complete dissolution. Everything about this setup was inexcusable and nearly caused the national fracture.
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