Secret Service was Told Police Could Not Watch Building Used by Trump Rally Shooter

The Washington Post · Carol D. Leonnig, Isaac Stanley-Becker, Maria Sacchetti, Jacqueline Alemany, Jon Swaine

12:44 JST, July 18, 2024

Local police alerted the Secret Service before former president Donald Trump’s rally Saturday that they lacked the resources to station a patrol car outside a key building where a gunman later positioned himself and shot at Trump, according to local and federal law enforcement.

Richard Goldinger, the district attorney in Butler County, Pa., where the Trump rally took place, said the Secret Service “was informed that the local police department did not have manpower to assist with securing that building.”

Goldinger’s account was confirmed by Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. Guglielmi said the proposal to station a patrol car and officer outside the Agr International building complex had been part of the Secret Service’s advance planning for securing the prominent structure, which had an expansive roof with an unobstructed view of the rally stage less than 150 yards away, where Trump would later stand.

At all public events, the Secret Service works to guard against the risk that a shooter on high ground could have a clear line of sight on the president or other senior officials under the agency’s protection. Five former agents with experience securing similar events told The Post that a police officer stationed outside the building might have helped detect the gunman sooner.

Guglielmi said that about 20 to 30 minutes before the shooting, local police assigned to the inside of the building warned the Secret Service security team by radio of a suspicious person with a golf range finder and backpack. Those officers also forwarded a photograph of the person, Guglielmi said.

Authorities from a number of jurisdictions were on the scene Saturday, and officials are still determining how the building was guarded – and how the 20-year-old gunman, Thomas Matthew Crooks, reached the roof. But the twin warnings from local law enforcement – first of insufficient manpower, then of a man behaving strangely – add to questions about whether the Secret Service adequately planned for and provided adequate security for the high-stakes presidential campaign visit.

The warnings also underscore a tension that has emerged in recent days between federal and local authorities over who bears responsibility for security lapses preceding the attempted assassination. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle, who had previously stressed that local police were responsible for the outer security perimeter, issued a statement to The Washington Post on Wednesday stressing the importance of collaboration with local authorities.

“The Secret Service cannot do our job without state and local police partners,” she said. “They live and work in the communities and have the expertise to navigate those settings.”

The security lapses are now the subject of multiple federal inquiries, and prompted a call Wednesday by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for Cheatle to resign. The shooting left Trump wounded, one rallygoer dead and two others critically injured. It is considered the most serious security failure by the Secret Service since the attempted assassination of then-President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

Crooks, of Bethel Park, Pa., used an AR-style rifle that was purchased legally by his father in 2013. Authorities have confirmed his father purchased more than a dozen guns over the years, but it was not immediately clear how many of those he still owned at the time of the shooting, two officials said.

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation, also said a remote trigger device was found on the roof with Crooks after he was shot. The FBI has previously said that “rudimentary” suspicious devices were found in Crooks’s vehicle, near the shooting site, and at the home where he lived with his parents. Authorities are still trying to determine why Crooks launched the attack. So far, they believe he acted alone.

Local media first reported this week that before the shooting, a municipal countersniper officer called in with a report and a photograph of a man – who turned out to be Crooks – acting suspiciously around the Agr International building.

WPXI television news reported that the officer called in around 5:45 p.m. – 26 minutes before Crooks opened fire from the roof. The Beaver Countian newspaper reported that a countersniper, Sgt. Gregory Nicol, made a warning of this kind. Nicol was working as part of a Beaver County emergency services unit drawn from various local departments, which is akin to a SWAT team, the newspaper said.

Both news outlets said it was unclear at the time of the warning whether the man was armed.

Nicol did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, his department confirmed that he was on-site with the Beaver County emergency unit but declined to comment further, citing investigations into the shootings.

The Beaver Countian reported that Nicol flagged Crooks’s movements to a command post two more times before the shootings, after having noticed him returning to the building with a backpack and handling a range-finder device. Butler Township Manager Tom Knights told Fox News that all law enforcement officers on-site received an alert about a suspicious person somewhere on the grounds, but did not specify when that alert was sent.

Lawmakers who were briefed by the FBI and Secret Service on Wednesday were told that Crooks was identified as being suspicious one hour before the shooting, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in a statement. He echoed McConnell’s call for Cheatle to resign.

“He had a range finder and a backpack. The Secret Service lost sight of him,” Barrasso said. “Someone has died. The President was almost killed. The head of the Secret Service needs to go.”

McConnell, the most senior lawmaker to demand Cheatle’s ouster, called the shooting “a grave attack on American democracy. The nation deserves answers and accountability. New leadership at the Secret Service would be an important step in that direction,” the senator said on X.

The FBI is leading the criminal investigation, and President Biden has called for an independent probe of the shooting and the security situation. The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General’s office said Wednesday that it is investigating both the Secret Service’s efforts to secure the Trump rally and the agency’s countersniper team to determine how it prepares for and responds to threats. The office is considering other reviews related to USSS programs and operations as well.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he will establish a bipartisan task force to conduct the congressional investigation into the attempted assassination. “The reason we’re going to do it that way is because that is a more precise strike. It goes quicker, there’s not a lot of the procedural hurdles, and we’ll have subpoena authority for that task force as well,” Johnson told Fox News in an interview.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) issued a subpoena to Cheatle, demanding her testimony at a hearing next week.

“The lack of transparency and failure to cooperate with the committee on this pressing matter by both DHS and the Secret Service further calls into question your ability to lead the Secret Service and necessitates the attached subpoena compelling your appearance before the Oversight Committee,” the letter said.

Cheatle took responsibility for the security failures that led to the shooting in an interview with ABC News. But the first attack on a U.S. leader under the agency’s protection since the 1981 shooting that wounded Reagan has raised broad questions about the elite protective agency’s planning, strategy and response to the attack.

The Secret Service was responsible for the overall security plan, but Cheatle said in the interview that the agency relied on local law enforcement in areas outside the security perimeter, including the building where the shooter was. She also said they made the decision to keep officers off the sloped roof because the incline presented a safety issue.

“The decision was made to secure the building from inside,” Cheatle told ABC News.

Secret Service countersniper teams may have initially been unable to spot the shooter as he crawled up the roof because of its slanted sides, as well as trees in the area, The Post has reported.